Category Archives: Iran

New Online Issue of CyberOrient

"Arab Spring", Anthropology/Sociology, CyberOrient, Egypt, Iran, Journalism and Media


CyberOrient, the online journal of the Middle East Section of the American Anthropological Association, has just published its 2012 issue on “The Net Worth of the Arab Spring.” The guest editor is Ines Braune, who writes in the Introduction:

When I was asked to be the guest editor of the current issue of CyberOrient, I realized this is a welcome opportunity to arrange and re-sort some aspects, points, and arguments about the role of the media during the Arab Spring. In the course of the events late in 2010 and early in 2011, I felt enthusiastic and overwhelmed – not primarily as a scholar with a background in Middle Eastern and media studies, but as someone who was part of the peaceful German revolution in 1989 as a young teenager. Upon reflection, I took up the role of a media researcher considering how the use of media shaped these events. Though much has already been said and written about the media and Arab Spring, it would be worthwhile after a bit more than a year to reflect and reevaluate the relationship between the media and revolutions. Due to my involvement in this edition, and after numerous discussions with colleagues, and students in my media seminar in the summer term, I frequently came across the following three points: the significance of mediatization processes, the online-offline dichotomy, and various kinds of amnesia.

The articles discuss the role of social media in Egypt, Iran, and Al Jazeera, along with two book reviews.

Comment peut-on être Persan?

Humor and Satire, Iran, Literature, Travel


The French savant and satirist Charles-Louis de Secondat, better known as Baron Montesquieu penned his Lettres Persanes in 1721, almost three centuries ago. This was long before the age of computers or the idea that eventually germinated in the head of Steve Jobs and blossomed into the Mac (and I do not mean the big kind you eat). I suspect that Montesquieu wrote by candle light with a quill for a pen, but he would have been delighted to type away on a Macbook, especially since it comes prepackaged with both a French keyboard and a Persian font. But, alas, poor Usbek and Rica would not be able to board an Air France flight to New York, connect to Atlanta and then walk into an Apple Store and buy a much smaller Air than the one they flew from Charles de Gaulle.

Shocking, is it not. But as Jamal Abdi writes in today’s New York Times, how to be a Persian has taken on new meaning in our globally-fixated-on-terrorism age:

Last month, Sahar Sabet, a 19-year-old Iranian-American woman, was improperly prevented from buying an iPad at an Apple store in Alpharetta, Ga. After she had gone over the various options with two Apple sales clerks, a third clerk, who had overheard Ms. Sabet speaking Persian to her uncle, intervened. He asked what language they were speaking and, when he found out it was the language of Iran, he said she could not buy anything because “our countries do not have good relations” — never mind that she intended to give it to her sister in North Carolina.

Of course, Montesquieu himself could walk into Le Apple Store in Paris and come out high on his own Airs. So I can only wonder what he might have added in the new updated version of Le emails persane. Perhaps it would go like this: Continue reading Comment peut-on être Persan? →

Tabsir Redux: Mahdi Madness and the 2008 Election

Election 2008, Iran, Islam and Christianity, Islamophobia

[Note: The commentary below was published as the presidential politics of 2008 were heading into the rhetorical throes of summer. Religion was all over the map, with Obama’s Christianity being questioned and his supposed “Islamic” past salivated by the right. This time around religion seems to be taking a back seat to the economy, perhaps in large part because Evangelicals do not want to remind themselves they are about to vote for a Mormon. But the sentiments discussed below are still quite alive…]

For some partisans, no matter who is elected President to succeed George W. Bush, it will seem like the end of the world. We are in the apocalypse silly season once again. Take Tim LeHaye, the doctrinal inspiration of the WASP-friendly Left Behind book series (Jerry B. Jenkins provides the verbal inspiration in sci-fi style); he has been preaching the politics of biblical apocalypse for years. Indeed, since the apostle John allegedly first had his vision on the island of Patmos, the world has been teetering in the end times. This world is always going to hell; Jesus must be coming soon. Bible-belting believers and bible-belching evangelists constantly look to the heavens with rapturous delight for the mother of all shock-and-awe shows to begin. Up go the faithful in the twinkling of an eye and then it is open tribulation season on the Jews that will make the 20th century Nazi holocaust look like a sabbath picnic. Fortunately, most of the world’s Christians look at such a naive-ity scene with alarm. “Even so,” it might be said, “do not come Lord Jesus.”

Reverends Tim LeHaye, Pat Robertson and John Hagee are not the only mega-mouths who know deep down in their saved souls that they will not be left behind. Ironically, they share theologically-maddened space with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the shi’a-evangelical President of Iran. As noted in a New York Times article today by Nazila Fathi, the Iranian President’s “high father” is Imam Mahdi, the hidden 12th “twelver” Imam who occulted well over a millennium ago, but whose reappearance has been looked for year after year in popular imagination. Ahmadinejad, who loves to wear his religion on his sleeves, says that Imam Mahdi guides his day-to-day decisions as a president. In gratitude, Ahmadinejad has sponsored an institute to prepare Iran for the Imam’s immanent return. This would be like Bush asking his faith-based supporters to create a special office in Homeland Security on Eternal Security Risks to those Left Behind. Continue reading Tabsir Redux: Mahdi Madness and the 2008 Election →

Numismatics at Hofstra

Archaeology and Antiquities, Central Asia, Conferences and Talks, Iran, Scholars


Sogdiana, Chach 3rd century

The Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies program at Hofstra announces
the Fourth Seminar on Central Asian and Middle Eastern Numismatics in Memoriam Boris Kochnev

Hofstra University, Breslin Hall 217, March 17, 2012
(Directions to Hofstra)

Attendance is free and all are welcome.

11:00 am
Daniel Varisco (Hofstra University)
Opening Remarks

11:15 am
Vladimir Belyaev (Zeno.ru, Sankt-Petersburg) and Aleksandr Naymark (Hofstra University)
Ancient Sogdian Coins from the Center of Kashka-darya Valley

12:00 noon
Stefan Heidemann (Hamburg University)
A Hoard from the Time of the Collapse of the Sasanian Empire

12:45 pm Lunch Break

1:30 pm
Michael Bates (American Numismatic Society, New York )
How Ziyad Made a Name for Himself:
Coins and the Chronology of Ziyad ‘son of his father’/’son of Abi Sufyan’ Continue reading Numismatics at Hofstra →

Islam and homosexuality: Straight but narrow

Afghanistan, Gender and Sexuality, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Malaysia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey


from The Economist, Feb 4th 2012

ONE leaflet showed a wooden doll hanging from a noose and suggested burning or stoning homosexuals. “God Abhors You” read another. A third warned gays: “Turn or Burn”. Three Muslim men who handed out the leaflets in the English city of Derby were convicted of hate crimes on January 20th. One of them, Kabir Ahmed, said his Muslim duty was “to give the message”.

That message—at least in the eyes of religious purists— is uncompromising condemnation. Of the seven countries that impose the death penalty for homosexuality, all are Muslim. Even when gays do not face execution, persecution is endemic. In 2010 a Saudi man was sentenced to 500 lashes and five years in jail for having sex with another man. In February last year, police in Bahrain arrested scores of men, mostly other Gulf nationals, at a “gay party”. Iranian gay men are typically tried on other trumped-up charges. But in September last year three were executed specifically for homosexuality. (Lesbians in Muslim countries tend to have an easier time: in Iran they are sentenced to death only on the fourth conviction.) Continue reading Islam and homosexuality: Straight but narrow →

Top Five U.S. misconceptions on Iran

Iran, Obama Administration, Terrorism Issue


By Hooman Majd, Politico, January 17, 2012

Top five, 10 or 100 lists are standard at the end of the year. Though the Iranian year doesn’t end for roughly two months, given the escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran, with threats and counter threats over the Strait of Hormuz — to say nothing of most GOP presidential candidates’ views on what to do about Iran — it might be useful to compile one on the growing Iran crisis, early 2012 here and late 1390 there:

1) More severe sanctions will eventually cause the regime to blink.

Um, no. Thirty-plus years of sanctions have had no effect on Tehran. None. The regime can’t blink — even if it wanted to. Not after it has spent energy, money and every tool it has convincing its people that the nuclear program is a matter of national pride, that the West wants to prevent Iranians from enjoying the fruits of technological advancement and that their suffering under the sanctions is for the country’s greater good.

The regime’s credibility has already suffered because of the opposition protests in 2009 and 2010. So what would it have left if it caved to foreign demands that even the opposition describes as unreasonable?

2) Increasing sanctions will cause the Iranian people to hate the regime even more, leading to an uprising against the ayatollahs.

No. The Iranian people may blame their government for economic mismanagement, as well as human-rights abuses — but most won’t blame it for U.S. actions. Similarly, Iranians may blame President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for exacerbating domestic problems or creating problems with the West because of his rhetoric. But they don’t blame him for, say, sanctions that prevent Tehran from buying parts for its aging airplanes, which fall out of the sky with alarming frequency.

Think about it: When a nation is attacked, or under severe external pressure, it usually blames the external enemies, not its own leaders. If you factor in the assassinations of scientists on the streets of Tehran and mysterious factory explosions, sanctions and threats may make life miserable for Iranians but are unlikely to cause them to overthrow their rulers. Continue reading Top Five U.S. misconceptions on Iran →