In response to the open letter initiated by Alberto Toscano and Peter Hallward in support of the protests in Iran one of my friends recently wrote to me angrily:
‘http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2008_Kenyan_crisis
Kenyan elections -
proven electoral fraud up tp 15%
proven deaths up to 1,500
proven internal displacement – up to quarter of a million
THAT IS FAR MORE THAN ZIMBAWE, IRAN, etc
therefore why didn’t the same Secular Wank Left intellectual
respond to that in the same way
this is the perspective from which I judge the current events
look at the bandwagon
and they are comparing this event to 1789 French revolution
(O Please!)
secular elites writing their secular elite fantasies
onto the elites of Northern Tehran (don’t worry they speak English) deluding themselves!’
yes, it is quite strange to see all of them here at the same time indeed. can it be that despite being incredibly, politically important- aspiring nuclear power, axis of evil etc- Iran is also deeply wired into the oriental imagination of the english sepaking publsihing industry, its discourses (via foucault and the french connection) as well as the certain artistic/academic networks?
Yet how many english speaking artists for example did work on tshinhvali or the genocides of tamils or chechens? A minority i suppose. does it mean that those promoting the very concrete sufferings of say tibetans or palestinians into the symbol of UNIVERSAL human victimisation of all times and places are demonic? The open letter doesn’t do this however, it merely states:
‘a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will: the freedom of the people to assemble, unhindered, as an inclusive collective force; the capacity of the people, without restrictions on debate or access to information, to deliberate, decide and implement a shared course of action.’
‘But they are the minority elites, merely middle class students and gucci
revolutionsries of northern tehran’ – yes maybe, predominantly, but so what? speaking purely in terms of urban students as a revolutionary class, it was them, the urban youth, that Mao mobilized first for the project of cultural revolution (as well as the hell that followed from it, which I can’t discuss now), im not even talking about the the 68 in europe or greece this year, where the relatively well-off students and school schildren played the major role in galvanising the protests. In fact, in all of these cases, the general strikes and the involvement of the workers only followed later to my knowledge, which was also true of the 79 iranian revolution. Its not that the students are the vanguard, but that anyone can partake in making the world more equal. Regardless who had the majority even the clearly pro-establishment commentator like Barzegar in the guardian’s ‘Iranian Identity crises’ (in other words ‘Iranian class antagonism’) estimates the demonstrations (in Tehran) numbering hundreds of thousands, and do we actually care about the framework of the ellections in anyway or the fact that Ahmadinajad managed to buy off a large segment of the rural and lumpenproletariate with his pathetic PR compaigns of pork distribution and so on? Once again about the ‘bourgeoise’ nature of the movement: in both gramsci, marx and spivak (even though they would term it differently) there is no essentialist, moralist problem with the elemnents of the middle classes (or bourgeoise culture) it can simply be an ‘ally of the proletariate’ (or whatever) or not.
And another thing, I am not worried that the tehrani gucci revolutionaries don’t speak english, i am worried that by Secular Wank Itellectual (which would include Talal Asad as he is also one of the signatories) is actually meant Intellectuals with EGALITARIAN values, where anything that smacks of egalitarianism is meant to be ‘WESTERN’ (an utterly meaningless term)and culturally eurocentric and imperialist. By the way, neither the protesters nor the petition actually is about demanding a secular state, it demands the application of the egalitarian prinicples without in any way denying the achievemnts of poverty reduction and irradication of illiteracy by the IR (just like it was the case with the ussr), The protests are the legitimate expression of the frustration with the current bureaucratic, state capitalism, which what IR is. We should also not delude ourselves with the end of nepotism there. How is it exaclty and significant way more effective in combating wives of presidents getting into the top of the heirrarchies then the other nationalist states (and i am neither a nationalist nor much of a patriot nor a statist?). Ayatolla Khamenei’s son Mojtaba Khamenei- the prospective succesor for the position of the supreme leader and all the relatives of Ahmadinajad.. in key positions make it clear that IR suffers from all the same deseases of USSR under Breznev. Oh, but i forgot, there is another male bureaucracy called the Council of Experts, with the billioner Rafsanjani and his allies there who may block Kojtaba from becoming elected and MAY replace the position of the ‘Supreme Leader’ with another council made out of a 3 or 4 such leaders.. well, that’s ok then, what a marvlous democracy, someone else will get hand hand picked, no need to worry. I don’t need to be writing all of that, do i? this all is rather a common knowledge.
i understand some people’s indignation when the radical philosophy collective doesn’t turn up to support the SOAS cleaners, but it is simply cynical to disregard the demonstrators in Iran as merely pro imperialist, twitter yuppies and the letter of support as somehow opportunistic or whatever.
Instead of such cynicism, i hope there will be simply more solidarity with everyone struggling regardless of their class and with everyone who try to help them.
________________________________________________________
Friday 19 June 2009
This morning Ayatollah Ali Khamenei demanded an end to the massive and forceful demonstrations protesting the controversial result of last week’s election. He argued that to make concessions to popular demands and ‘illegal’ pressure would amount to a form of ‘dictatorship’, and he warned the protestors that they, rather than the police, would be held responsible for any further violence.
Khamenei’s argument sounds familiar to anyone interested in the politics of collective action, since it appears to draw on the logic used by state authorities to oppose most of the great popular mobilisations of modern times, from 1789 in France to 1979 in Iran itself. These mobilisations took shape through a struggle to assert the principle that sovereignty rests with the people themselves, rather than with the state or its representatives. ‘No government can justly claim authority’, as South Africa’s ANC militants put it in their Freedom Charter of 1955, ‘unless it is based on the will of all the people.’
Needless to say it is up to the people of Iran to determine their own political course. Foreign observers inspired by the courage of those demonstrating in Iran this past week are nevertheless entitled to point out that a government which claims to represent the will of its people can only do so if it respects the most basic preconditions for the determination of such a will: the freedom of the people to assemble, unhindered, as an inclusive collective force; the capacity of the people, without restrictions on debate or access to information, to deliberate, decide and implement a shared course of action.
Years of foreign-sponsored ‘democracy promotion’ in various parts of the world have helped to spread a well-founded scepticism about civic movements which claim some sort of direct democratic legitimacy. But the principle itself remains as clear as ever: only the people themselves can determine the value of such claims. We the undersigned call on the government of Iran to take no action that might discourage such determination.
AGAMBEN, Giorgio, Università IUAV di Venezia, Venice
ALAMDARI, Kazem, California State University, Los Angeles
ALLIEZ, Eric, Middlesex Universtiy, UK
AMSLER, Sarah S., Language and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham
ANDERSON, Kevin B., Professor of Sociology and Political Science, University of California, Santa Barbara
ASAD, Talal, Graduate Center, City University of New York
BADIOU, Alain, École Normale Supérieure, Paris
BALIBAR, Etienne, Paris X, Nanterre, and University of California, Irvine
BALKAN, Nesecan,Hamilton College
BANUAZIZI, Ali, Professor of Political Science and Director, Program in Islamic Civilization and Societies, Boston College
BAYAT, Asef, Professor of Sociology and Middle East Studies, Leiden University
BEHROOZ, Maziar, Associate Professor of Middle East History, San Francisco State University
BENHABIB, Seyla, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy, Yale University, New Haven
BEYER, Vera, Kunsthistorisches Institut der Freien Universität Berlin
BIENIEK, Adam, Jagiellonian University, Chair of Arab Studies, Institute of Oriental Philology, Cracow, Poland
BOCHENSKA, Joanna, Dept. of Kurdish Studies, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
BOGDAN, Jolan, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK
BOSTEELS, Bruno Bosteels, Cornell University
BRAULT, Pascale-Anne, Professor of French, Dept. of Modern Languages, DePaul University
BRUNO, Michael, Dept. of Philosophy, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR
BRUSTAD, Kristen, Associate Chair, Dept. Of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin
BURGE, Tyler, University of California, Los Angeles
BURGERS, Jan-Willem, Australian National University
BUTLER, Judith, University of California, Berkeley
BUTT, Gavin, Senior Lecturer & Programme Leader in MPhil / PhD,
CARDIN, Maryam, IUT of the University of Marne-la-vallée
CHOMSKY, Noam, MIT, Cambridge MA USA
COHEN, Joshua, Stanford University
COLE, Juan R. I., Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan
DABASHI, Hamid, Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, New York
DE CARO, Mario, Dept. of Philosophy, University of Rome
DI LUCIA COLLETI, Laura, Conseillor Province of Venice
DOGRAMACI, Sinan, University of Texas at Austin
DOLEZALEK, Isabelle, Freie Universität Berlin
DOMINIAK, Piotr, Chairman of ASK Association in Raciborz, Poland
DORFMAN, Vladimiro Ariel, Duke Universtiy, Durham, North Carolina
DÜTTMANN, Alexander Garcia, Goldsmiths College
EHSANI, Kaveh, Assistant Professor of International Studies, DePaul University
EISENSTEIN, Zillah, Professor of Politics, Ithaca College
ENGELMANN, Stephen, University of Illinois at Chicago
EPSTEIN, Barbara, History of Consciousness Dept., University of California, Santa Cruz
FALK, Richard, Professor of International Law Emeritus, Princeton University
FARHI, Farideh, Dept. of Political Science, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
FARNOODY-ZAHIRI, Nelly, UCLA
FASY, Thomas M., Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City
FATIMA KHAN, Mahruq, Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Wisconsin-La Crosse
FIELD, Hartry, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
FORAN, John, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
FRIEDLAND, Roger, Professor of Religiou Studies and Sociology, UCSB
GAJEWSKA, Katarzyna, University of Poland
GANDJBAKHSH, Amirhosseing, Research Director, National Health Institute, Washington DC
GANZ, David, Universität Konstanz, Germany
GARRETT, Don, Dept. of Philosophy, New York University
GASIOROWSKI, Mark, Political Science and International Studies, Louisiana State University
GLOGOWSKI, Aleksander, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
GODMILOW, Jill, University of Notre Dame
GOLE, Nilufer, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris
HÁJEK, Alan, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University
HALLWARD, Peter, Middlesex University, UK
HASHEMI, Nader, Assistant Professor of Middle East and Islamic Politics
HEGASY, Sonja, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin
HERRERA, Linda, Institute of Social Studies (The Hague)
HIBBARD, Scott, DePaul University, Chicago
HOEFERT, Almut, University of Basel
HONNETH, Axel, University of Frankfurt, Germany
IVEKOVIC, Rada, Collège international de philosophie, Paris, Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Etienne
JIMENEZ, Maria, Université Paris Sorbonne, Paris IV
KAPLINSKY, Raphael, Professor of International Development, The Open University, UK
KESHAVARZIAN, Arang, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
KHOSROVANI, Sahar, University of Maastricht
KORBEL, Josef, School of International Studies, University of Denver
KOWALIK, Tadeusz, professor of economics and humanities, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw
KOWALSKA, Beata, Jagiellonian University, Poland
KOZLOWSKI, Pawel, Professor of economics, Polish Academy of Sciences
KUMAR, Victor, University of Arizona
LARRIVÉE, Pierre, Aston University, Birmingham
LEMISCH, Jesse, Professor Emeritus, History, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, USA
MARTINON, Jean-Paul, Dept. of Visual Cultures, Goldsmiths College, UK
MASROUR, Farid, Dept. Of Philosophy, New York University
MCFARLAND, Andrew, Political Science Dept., University of Illinois,
Chicago
MCINTYRE, Michael, International Studies, DePaul University, Chicago
MEHDIZADEH, Hamidreza, Illinois Institute of Technology
MEMMI, Paul, Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense
MOALLEM, Minoo, UC Berkeley
MORUZZI, Norma Claire, University of Illinois at Chicago, Political Science, History, Gender and Women’s Studies
MOSES, Claire G., Dept. of Women’s Studies, University of Maryland
MOSHTAGHI, Nazgol, University of South Florida
NAST, Heidi, DePaul University, Chicago
NATCHKEBIA, Irina, Tbilisi University
NEGRI, Antonio, Collège International de Philosophie
NESPOULOUS, Jean-Luc, Université de Toulouse, Le Mirail et Institut Universitaire de France
NOYAU, Colette, Dépt des Sciences du langage, CNRS, Université Paris-Ouest
OBDRZALEK, Suzanne, Dept of Philosophy, Claremont McKenna College
PATTERSON, Ian, Director of Studies in English, Queens’ College Cambridge
PETTIT, Philip, University Center for Human Values, Princeton University
PHELPS, Christopher, Dept. of History, The Ohio State University
PIRVELI, Marika, Szczecin University, Poland
POTTER, Robert, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
PRÉVOST, Sophie, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
PRINZ, Jesse, Professor of Philosophy, City University of New York
PROUST, Joëlle, Director of Research, Institut Jean-Nicod, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Ecole Normale Supérieure
PSTRUSIŃSKA, Jadwiga, Head of Dept. of Interdisciplinary Eurasiatic Research, Institute of Oriental Philology, Jagiellonian University, Cracow
RAKOWIECKA, Karolina, Jagiellonian University, Cracow
RAKOWIECKI, Jacek, Collegium Civitas, Poland
RANCIÈRE, Jacques, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis)
REZAEI ,Ali, Dept. of Sociology, University of Calgary, Canada
RIGGLE, Nicholas Alden, Philosophy, New York University
ROMAN, Richard, University of Toronto
ROSENTHAL, David M., Professor of Philosophy, Cognitive Science Concentration Graduate Center, City University of New York
ROSS, Eric B., Visiting Professor of Anthropology and International Development Studies, George Washington University, Washington, D.C.
SAHNI, Varun, Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Ganeshkhind, Pune
SANBONMATSU, John, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Dept. Of Humanities and Arts, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, MA
SCHAEFER, Karin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany
SCHELLENBERG, Susanna, Professor of Philosophy, Research School of the Social Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra
SCHIBECI, Lynn, (retired) Dept. of History, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico
SCHIELKE, Samuli, Centre of Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin
SCHRECKER, Ellen, Professor of American History at Yeshiva University, New York
SCHWABSKY, Barry, Senior Critic in Sculpture (retired), Yale University
SEDGWICK, Sally, University of Illinois, Chicago
SHAHSAVARI, Anousha, Persian Lecturer, University of Texas at Austin
SHEIKHZADEGAN, Amir, University of Freiburg
SIEGEL, Susanna C., Professor of Philosophy, Harvard University, Cambridge
SIMPSON, Dick, Head of the Political Science Dept., University of Illinois, Chicago
SINGPURWALLA, Rachel, University of Maryland, College Park
SOSA, Ernest, Rutgers University Philosophy Department
SPERBER, Dan, Institut Jean Nicod, CRNS, Paris
STEINSEIFER, Martin, Universität Giessen
STUART, Jack, Minneapolis, MN
Tabb, William K., City University of New York
TAVAKOLI-BORAZJANI, Farifteh, Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Iranistik
TAVAKOLI-TARGHI, Mohamad, Professor of History and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto
TISSBERGER, Martina, Freie Universität Berlin, Dept. of Educational Sciences and Psychology
TOHIDI, Nayereh, Professor and Chair, Gender and Women’s Studies Dept., California State University, Northridge
TOSCANO, Alberto, Goldsmiths College, UK
UNGER, Peter, Professor of Philosophy, New York University
VAHDAT, Farzin, Vassar College, New York
VAN BLUEMEL, Emeritus Professor of Physics at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, in Worcester, MA
VAN BRUINESSEN, Martin, Chair of Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies, Utrecht University
VICTORRI, Bernard, Directeur de recherché CNRS, Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris
WATZL, Sebastian, Dept. of Philosophy, Columbia University
WEINTRAUB, Jeff, University of Pennsylvania
WHITE, Stephen, Dept. of Philosophy, Tufts University
WINANT, Howard, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
ZIAI, Hossein, Director of Iranian Studies, UCLA Dept. of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Los Angeles, CA
ŽIŽEK, Slavoj, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia and the European Graduate School
ZUK, Agnieszka, University of Nancy
ZUPANCIC, Alenka, Institute of Philosophy of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts
