Saturday 20 June 2009

Iran - What Is Going On?

I was speaking last Saturday at the Manchester Islamic Institute sharing a platform with Sheikh Arif Abdul Hussein from Al Mahdi Institute in Birmingham at an event organised by Mohebban Youth Foundation to celebrate the Birthday of Fatima, Muhammad's youngest daughter and Mother of Imam Hussein. A lot of the talk at the meal after the official programme was about the Iranian Elections with the vote having just been announced that day. A week later and things have moved fast and developed considerably.

To get some background on the events and to go beyond the simplistic presentations of the dynamics within Iranian politics and the Islamic Republic that is often presented in our news media it is worth watching the clip below from an alternative US news network Grit TV. The clip includes an interview with Hamid Dabashi an interesting Iranian born intellectual who has written extensively on Islam, Iran and the Iranian Revolution and the Islamic Republic including Iran - a People Interrupted, Islamic Liberation Theology - Resisting the Empire and Theology of Discontent -The Ideological Foundations of the Islamic Revolution in Iran


Meanwhile the Campaign Against Sanctions and Military Intervention in Iran has a page on their website devoted to presenting a range of opinions on the elections from mainline and other sources. See also the interesting Tehran Bureau

Another clip from an interview with Hamid Dabashi below from 20th June

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