> At Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, students dressed in black shouted “Long Live the Shah,” a reference to Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last monarch, who has emerged as a leader of the recent protests.
This is unfortunate and gives the regime a chance to say "see, these people are puppets of the monarchy".
I feel like the people who want a monarchy installed are trying to fish in troubled waters.
Not puppets of the monarchy per se but at least some of them may be puppets of foreign actors who are backing the monarchy.
Honestly very hard to say, I don’t know what to believe about the Iran situation. I think it’s pretty much impossible to get a good understanding of it from a western country
1) Iran's government has not done a good job of running the country and is therefore genuinely unpopular among a significant percentage of the population.
2) Iran's current government has powerful enemies (US, UK and of course a country in the Middle East all really hate the Iranian regime) and those enemies are actively trying to destabilise it.
So it's really hard from the perspective of being in a western country to work out how much of the protests are genuinely endogenous to Iran and how much is an intelligence operation, because it's clearly not 0%
> gives the regime a chance to say "see, these people are puppets of the monarchy"
Regime isn't the messaging target. Foreign actors are. And rightly or wrongly, desperate people will choose the icons they have, and the set to choose from is generally those that are helping and those the current regime despises. The first set is scarce. So we're left with the second.
The points are valid, but why the personal insults?
Re: the grandparent comment.
"Javid Shah" is one of the main chants of the recent protests. It's not particularly specific. Reza Pahlavi is the main figurehead of the opposition. He's a likely candidate to preside over a transitional government if this new revolution succeeds.
The regime's positioning is largely irrelevant now. The people are liable to adopt the opposite position simply because they see the regime as their enemy.
The idea that Iranians are marching in the streets begging for a monarchy is so absurd only the dumbest will believe it.
And specifically they are "dying" to bring back the clown prince, son of a foreign puppet that was deposed by their parents/grandparents.
Afraid the zionist controlled media has already set the stage for an Iraq level invasion, using their propaganda machine, to install the guy they control.
According to the book "A Convergence of Civilizations" from Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd [1], the Iran revolution actually happened at the end of the 70s. And indeed, the political situation is not stable yet. The authors argue in the book that historically, it can take from 30 to more than 100 years before a country gets a stable democracy after a revolution.
Notably, the book was written before the Arab Spring revolutions, and yet, it predicted them rather accurately. The main thesis of the book is that a revolution arises when most of the men and most of the women in a country can read.
> None of the Arab Spring revolutions have gone well
None of the Arab-Spring populations had democratic rule since, arguably, Carthage. Iran is different [1].
More importantly, Iran was recently a secular society. It has memory of education and freedom. Many Arab countries have been fundamentalist for their entire modern eras.
(To be clear, every first democracy arose from the ashes of a string of fallen autocrats. I'm arguing for Iran being different from Egypt, Tunisia or Gaza.)
Iran had a parliament until they wanted Iran to control its own oil, whence the US and UK overthrew Mossadegh. They had ayatollah Borujerdi wreck the democracy. Also Kashani who helped oust Mossadegh, and then later supported Khomeini.
The US recently worked to oust the secular leader of Syria to replace him with an ISIS leader. Actually al-Sharaa was on the US wanted terrorist list, only removed three months ago. Many such stories.
No Iran had a parliamant until it was overthrown in a socialist revolution. Then the ayatollahs started killing people, taking power. The KGB, of course, was also involved, on the side of the ayatollahs, like all socialists (the socialist international supported Khomeini personally). I kind of agree that the CIA is not always on the right side, but in Iran, is it so hard to say that at the very least the CIA was a lot better than the alternative?
Hell, the ayatollahs even gave communist housing a shot. They failed, just like they failed at everything, but they gave it a shot.
So you can ask the direct question: just like Venezuela was way better off with oil extraction before Chavez/Maduro ... and also in Iran you can easily say the situation was better before ... so is oil extraction and participating in the global economy not a lot better, at least for anyone actually living there?
> Democracy wont survive in iran until the govt want their oil to be depleted by western war hungry demons
Yet somehow Brazil, Mexico, India and hosts of other non-European-origin-majority resource-rich democracies exist.
That said, maybe the limiting factor on democracy is agency. If a culture blames outside forces for all of its woes, there is nothing it can–within that worldview–do to self improve. So it won't. If, on the other hand, it separates the factors it can control from those it can't (and nobody can control all of the factors, that's just reality), it has a hope.
CIA meddles in elections of practically all 3 of those countries and none of them are openly anti America. If you are liberal bourgeoise democracy you cant be anti america, thats the standard set by epstienite empire, doesnt seem much freedom of choice is given to them? When was the last time america did a coup in those countries and killed their leader?
No one wants their country to be controlled by child eating pedophiles. Its funny when those funding genocide in gaza lecture other cultures about agency
This is a super-interesting point of view. Thank You!
May I ask what source(s) of information and knowledge have made it possible for you to develop such a very clear conception of the complexities of the technologic, economic, politic, social, and cultural aspects of the question?
maybe the fact that Persians != Arabs will improve their odds. Recent uprisings had more luck (i.e. Bangladesh), even if it’s too early to fully assess their success
Right, a clearer way of saying this, as you do, is the West imposed crippling sanctions just prior to all of this, as Trump sends aircraft carriers to the Gulf.
> a clearer way of saying this, as you do, is the West imposed crippling sanctions
The world doesn't revolve around the West. Nobody in America caused the IRGC to engineer a water crisis. Nobody asked for them to murder students in an internet-connected age, like the single thing you do not do if you want to calm things down.
Sanctions have made Iranians poorer. But so has their gerontocratic theocracy pursuing autarky and misguided nuclear ambitions at any cost. Khamenei can't hold open elections because he knows he'd lose.
Right and we could allow that government to continue to murder tens of thousands of it’s innocent civilians, build proxy armies that are larger than all the armies of Europe to kill all the Jews, to murder all of their minorities and anyone that remotely scares them while they build nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that they could use to murder Americans in the east coast, I mean they so scream “Death to America!” at all of their pro Islamic regime rallies …
Or was that not what you meant?
FYI - in Persianate Islam (Shia and Sunni), the 40th day of mourning is extremely important, which is called Arbaeen, Chehelom, Chawlisan, or Qirq depending on the region. This is when mourners will conduct a procession.
It has been roughly 40 days since the massacres began, and something similar happened in 1979 during the revolution, which was largely sparked during the mourning period (chehelom) for the Qom Massacre.
The cynic in me feels that this must have been recognized by policymakers given how critical the motif of martyrdom is in Persianate culture as Ali Shariati, Ahmed Fardid, and Jalal Al-e-Ahmad - the three pillars of modern Iranian philosophy and culture, as well as the Shia undertones of the 1979 Revolution - have elucidated.
Edit: can't reply
> This just shows how bad the situation for our philosophy and culture have become in the last century...
Yep.
I don't agree with their beliefs, but you cannot decouple a large portion of modern Iran from Shariati/Fardid/Al-e-Ahmad's motifs, which themselves are largely derived from Iqbal and Heidegger.
That's just an opinion, not an argument. It adds nothing valuable to this discussion. If you want to criticize, can you point to specific things and explain your reasoning? It might be useful, to make an actual point. Or whatever.
1. "Occidentosis: A Plague from the West" by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
2. "Red Shi'ism vs. Black Shi'ism" by Ali Shariati
3. "Martyrdom: Arise and Bear Witness" by Ali Shariati
4. "The Purification of the Soul" by Ahmed Fardid
Most modern Iranian Shia philosophy is largely a synthesis of Heiddiger and Muhammad Iqbal ("Saare Jahan Se Aacha, Hindustan Humara"), as these Iranian philosophers were largely from Khorasan and Dari speaking so most were acquaintances with Iqbal, who popularized Heiddiger's thought across Persianate society.
Basically, if you synthesize Heidigger's concept of authenticity with the Persianate motif of martyrdom with a dose of Persianate chauvinism and Shia theology, you have what became Khomeinism.
It's basically Maoism but with the Marxist-Leninist and Confucian undertones replaced with Shia and Persianate undertones.
I also can't help but notice how both Mao/Li/Chen and Shariati/Fardid/Al-e-Ahmad were all members of the rural elite who faced dislocation when immigrating to urban society in the early 20th century.
Edit: can't reply
> Are there specific translations you’d call out
We had English translations at Widener Library [0]. There might be similar ones online. Idk, I don't want to get on a list.
> Wait, is this Farsi? I think I can parse it with my rough knowledge of Hindi
Muhammad Iqbal was both an Indian freedom fighter, the creator of the Pakistan movement, and one of the first modern Persianate scholars.
Back during that era, most Persian scholarship was centered amongst the South Asian community. Additionally, educated Koshur and Paharis (irrespective of religion) from that era were heavily Persianate in outlook (eg. Even Koshur Hindus back then would consider studying a BA Persian as an alternative to a BA Sanskrit).
As such, Iqbal's works were very common amongst the madrassa-turned-western educated Iranian intelligentsia of the early 20th century.
https://archive.ph/P3QFa
> At Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, students dressed in black shouted “Long Live the Shah,” a reference to Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last monarch, who has emerged as a leader of the recent protests.
This is unfortunate and gives the regime a chance to say "see, these people are puppets of the monarchy".
I feel like the people who want a monarchy installed are trying to fish in troubled waters.
Not puppets of the monarchy per se but at least some of them may be puppets of foreign actors who are backing the monarchy.
Honestly very hard to say, I don’t know what to believe about the Iran situation. I think it’s pretty much impossible to get a good understanding of it from a western country
> Honestly very hard to say
It really isn't. Inflation at a fraction of Iran's prompts governments to change in any democracy.
What I mean is two things are true at once:
1) Iran's government has not done a good job of running the country and is therefore genuinely unpopular among a significant percentage of the population.
2) Iran's current government has powerful enemies (US, UK and of course a country in the Middle East all really hate the Iranian regime) and those enemies are actively trying to destabilise it.
So it's really hard from the perspective of being in a western country to work out how much of the protests are genuinely endogenous to Iran and how much is an intelligence operation, because it's clearly not 0%
> gives the regime a chance to say "see, these people are puppets of the monarchy"
Regime isn't the messaging target. Foreign actors are. And rightly or wrongly, desperate people will choose the icons they have, and the set to choose from is generally those that are helping and those the current regime despises. The first set is scarce. So we're left with the second.
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The points are valid, but why the personal insults?
Re: the grandparent comment.
"Javid Shah" is one of the main chants of the recent protests. It's not particularly specific. Reza Pahlavi is the main figurehead of the opposition. He's a likely candidate to preside over a transitional government if this new revolution succeeds.
The regime's positioning is largely irrelevant now. The people are liable to adopt the opposite position simply because they see the regime as their enemy.
This article glows.
The idea that Iranians are marching in the streets begging for a monarchy is so absurd only the dumbest will believe it.
And specifically they are "dying" to bring back the clown prince, son of a foreign puppet that was deposed by their parents/grandparents.
Afraid the zionist controlled media has already set the stage for an Iraq level invasion, using their propaganda machine, to install the guy they control.
Hang on tight, a ship called Gerald still has another few dozens of hours to Suez!
Good luck to them. None of the Arab Spring revolutions have gone well. 0/6
According to the book "A Convergence of Civilizations" from Youssef Courbage and Emmanuel Todd [1], the Iran revolution actually happened at the end of the 70s. And indeed, the political situation is not stable yet. The authors argue in the book that historically, it can take from 30 to more than 100 years before a country gets a stable democracy after a revolution.
Notably, the book was written before the Arab Spring revolutions, and yet, it predicted them rather accurately. The main thesis of the book is that a revolution arises when most of the men and most of the women in a country can read.
[1]: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/a-convergence-of-civilizations...
> None of the Arab Spring revolutions have gone well
None of the Arab-Spring populations had democratic rule since, arguably, Carthage. Iran is different [1].
More importantly, Iran was recently a secular society. It has memory of education and freedom. Many Arab countries have been fundamentalist for their entire modern eras.
(To be clear, every first democracy arose from the ashes of a string of fallen autocrats. I'm arguing for Iran being different from Egypt, Tunisia or Gaza.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_in_classical_Iran
Iran had a parliament until they wanted Iran to control its own oil, whence the US and UK overthrew Mossadegh. They had ayatollah Borujerdi wreck the democracy. Also Kashani who helped oust Mossadegh, and then later supported Khomeini.
The US recently worked to oust the secular leader of Syria to replace him with an ISIS leader. Actually al-Sharaa was on the US wanted terrorist list, only removed three months ago. Many such stories.
Sure. Not sure what about any of that says Iranians are incapable of governing themselves as a democracy.
Iranians are protesting because their economy is collapsing from targeted attacks by the US/West.
Foreign media records them and says they are trying to depose the theocracy, propaganda to justify a military incursion.
Wild claims of civilians being killed by the regime, with zero evidence, manufactured from thin air. (WMD's in Iraq, White phosphorus in Syria)
Average person now thinks it's their duty to to send American sons to die in the sandbox for another generation.
The only winner here, israel.
No Iran had a parliamant until it was overthrown in a socialist revolution. Then the ayatollahs started killing people, taking power. The KGB, of course, was also involved, on the side of the ayatollahs, like all socialists (the socialist international supported Khomeini personally). I kind of agree that the CIA is not always on the right side, but in Iran, is it so hard to say that at the very least the CIA was a lot better than the alternative?
Hell, the ayatollahs even gave communist housing a shot. They failed, just like they failed at everything, but they gave it a shot.
So you can ask the direct question: just like Venezuela was way better off with oil extraction before Chavez/Maduro ... and also in Iran you can easily say the situation was better before ... so is oil extraction and participating in the global economy not a lot better, at least for anyone actually living there?
Crass bullshit. Democracy wont survive in iran until the govt want their oil to be depleted by western war hungry demons. We truly live in hell
> Democracy wont survive in iran until the govt want their oil to be depleted by western war hungry demons
Yet somehow Brazil, Mexico, India and hosts of other non-European-origin-majority resource-rich democracies exist.
That said, maybe the limiting factor on democracy is agency. If a culture blames outside forces for all of its woes, there is nothing it can–within that worldview–do to self improve. So it won't. If, on the other hand, it separates the factors it can control from those it can't (and nobody can control all of the factors, that's just reality), it has a hope.
CIA meddles in elections of practically all 3 of those countries and none of them are openly anti America. If you are liberal bourgeoise democracy you cant be anti america, thats the standard set by epstienite empire, doesnt seem much freedom of choice is given to them? When was the last time america did a coup in those countries and killed their leader?
No one wants their country to be controlled by child eating pedophiles. Its funny when those funding genocide in gaza lecture other cultures about agency
EDIT: Never mind, disengaging. Troll [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=clot27
You can disengage without insulting them.
Yeah if anything the US is the real victim here, we constantly have to go cleaning up things over there at great expense.
This is a super-interesting point of view. Thank You!
May I ask what source(s) of information and knowledge have made it possible for you to develop such a very clear conception of the complexities of the technologic, economic, politic, social, and cultural aspects of the question?
maybe the fact that Persians != Arabs will improve their odds. Recent uprisings had more luck (i.e. Bangladesh), even if it’s too early to fully assess their success
The status quo in Iran isn’t going well either; the economy is terrible and getting worse, and the government is slaughtering its own citizens.
> the economy is terrible and getting worse
we could always stop punishing the people of Iran for their government...
And the government could stop murdering people.
Right, a clearer way of saying this, as you do, is the West imposed crippling sanctions just prior to all of this, as Trump sends aircraft carriers to the Gulf.
> a clearer way of saying this, as you do, is the West imposed crippling sanctions
The world doesn't revolve around the West. Nobody in America caused the IRGC to engineer a water crisis. Nobody asked for them to murder students in an internet-connected age, like the single thing you do not do if you want to calm things down.
Sanctions have made Iranians poorer. But so has their gerontocratic theocracy pursuing autarky and misguided nuclear ambitions at any cost. Khamenei can't hold open elections because he knows he'd lose.
Right and we could allow that government to continue to murder tens of thousands of it’s innocent civilians, build proxy armies that are larger than all the armies of Europe to kill all the Jews, to murder all of their minorities and anyone that remotely scares them while they build nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles that they could use to murder Americans in the east coast, I mean they so scream “Death to America!” at all of their pro Islamic regime rallies … Or was that not what you meant?
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The Tunisian revolution was a success.
FYI - in Persianate Islam (Shia and Sunni), the 40th day of mourning is extremely important, which is called Arbaeen, Chehelom, Chawlisan, or Qirq depending on the region. This is when mourners will conduct a procession.
It has been roughly 40 days since the massacres began, and something similar happened in 1979 during the revolution, which was largely sparked during the mourning period (chehelom) for the Qom Massacre.
The cynic in me feels that this must have been recognized by policymakers given how critical the motif of martyrdom is in Persianate culture as Ali Shariati, Ahmed Fardid, and Jalal Al-e-Ahmad - the three pillars of modern Iranian philosophy and culture, as well as the Shia undertones of the 1979 Revolution - have elucidated.
Edit: can't reply
> This just shows how bad the situation for our philosophy and culture have become in the last century...
Yep.
I don't agree with their beliefs, but you cannot decouple a large portion of modern Iran from Shariati/Fardid/Al-e-Ahmad's motifs, which themselves are largely derived from Iqbal and Heidegger.
> Ali Shariati, Ahmed Fardid, and Jalal Al-e-Ahmad - the three pillars of modern Iranian philosophy and culture
This just shows how bad the situation for our philosophy and culture have become in the last century...
I really wouldn't call these charlatans "pillars of modern Iranian philosophy and culture"
That's just an opinion, not an argument. It adds nothing valuable to this discussion. If you want to criticize, can you point to specific things and explain your reasoning? It might be useful, to make an actual point. Or whatever.
Is there a good book on “the three pillars of modern Iranian philosophy” that could serve as an overview to someone unfamiliar?
The main primary sources I'd say are:
1. "Occidentosis: A Plague from the West" by Jalal Al-e-Ahmad
2. "Red Shi'ism vs. Black Shi'ism" by Ali Shariati
3. "Martyrdom: Arise and Bear Witness" by Ali Shariati
4. "The Purification of the Soul" by Ahmed Fardid
Most modern Iranian Shia philosophy is largely a synthesis of Heiddiger and Muhammad Iqbal ("Saare Jahan Se Aacha, Hindustan Humara"), as these Iranian philosophers were largely from Khorasan and Dari speaking so most were acquaintances with Iqbal, who popularized Heiddiger's thought across Persianate society.
Basically, if you synthesize Heidigger's concept of authenticity with the Persianate motif of martyrdom with a dose of Persianate chauvinism and Shia theology, you have what became Khomeinism.
It's basically Maoism but with the Marxist-Leninist and Confucian undertones replaced with Shia and Persianate undertones.
I also can't help but notice how both Mao/Li/Chen and Shariati/Fardid/Al-e-Ahmad were all members of the rural elite who faced dislocation when immigrating to urban society in the early 20th century.
Edit: can't reply
> Are there specific translations you’d call out
We had English translations at Widener Library [0]. There might be similar ones online. Idk, I don't want to get on a list.
> Wait, is this Farsi? I think I can parse it with my rough knowledge of Hindi
Muhammad Iqbal was both an Indian freedom fighter, the creator of the Pakistan movement, and one of the first modern Persianate scholars.
Back during that era, most Persian scholarship was centered amongst the South Asian community. Additionally, educated Koshur and Paharis (irrespective of religion) from that era were heavily Persianate in outlook (eg. Even Koshur Hindus back then would consider studying a BA Persian as an alternative to a BA Sanskrit).
As such, Iqbal's works were very common amongst the madrassa-turned-western educated Iranian intelligentsia of the early 20th century.
[0] - https://library.harvard.edu/collections/middle-eastern-colle...
Are these texts accessible to someone without a lot of context for Persian culture? (Are there specific translations you’d call out?)
> Saare Jahan Se Aacha, Hindustan Humara
Wait, is this Farsi? I think I can parse it with my rough knowledge of Hindi.
Brave heroes.
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