Drugs and Revolution in Iran: Islamic Devotion,Revolutionary Zeal and Republican Means

On 27 June 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini declared, ‘drugs are prohibited” and their trafficking, consumption and “promotion” were against the rules of Islam and could not take place in the Islamic Republic. This ruling, although informal in nature, sanctioned a swift re-direction of Iran's previous approach to narcotic drugs, both in terms of production and consumption. As had happened in 1955, Iran seemed ready to go back to a policy of total prohibition and eradication of opiates, this time under the banner of Islam rather than that of the international drug control regime. Drugs and the politics surrounding them have been a crucial, yet neglected, aspect of the history of modern Iran that have changed the nature of the state bolstering its capacity of social intervention, while hindering its legitimacy, in the Pahlavi, as in the republican, era. By moving on “from the analysis of the state to a concern with the actualities of social subordination”, this article attempts to interpret how social subordination and state coercion were practiced and defied in the making of punishment and welfare in the social body of Iran.     

简论伊斯兰革命以来伊朗妇女的就业状况

本文以伊朗每十年一次的全国人口普查数据为基础,对伊斯兰革命以来伊朗妇女的就业状况做了分析,对导致伊朗妇女就业比例下降的经济、政治和宗教文化等方面的原因做了探讨。     

Nuclear proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran

Since the mid-1980s, Israel, thGawdat Bahgate United States, and other Western powers have accused Iran of pursuing nuclear weapons capability. Iranian officials have categorically denied these accusations and claimed that their nuclear program is designed for civilian purposes. This essay examines the history of Iran's nuclear program since the late 1950s and analyzes the forces that shape the country's nuclear policy. These forces include perception of security threats from Pakistan, Iraq, Israel, and the United States; domestic economic and political dynamics; and national pride. The following section will discuss the European and Russian stance on Iran's nuclear ambition as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency's efforts to reach a compromise that would satisfy the international community's concerns and Tehran's demands. The essay concludes with some predictions on how Iran's nuclear program is likely to evolve in the next few decades.     

城市化、城市边缘群体与伊朗伊斯兰革命

20世纪50年代末60年代初巴列维国王发动白色革命,自上而下地推行一揽子经济改革计划,包括土地改革、工业化、扫盲、扩大世俗教育、限制宗教势力等。此后的伊朗,在石油繁荣的带动下,经济发展进入快车道,城市化进入加速发展期。城市化迅猛推进导致伊朗阶级结构嬗变。一方面,两大传统精英阶层乌里玛和巴扎商人的中心地位丧失而渐趋边缘化;另一方面,两大新生阶层即城市新移民和现代知识分子由于政治排斥而被边缘化。传统精英阶层因为利益受损对现实不满,新生阶层则受制度排斥而反对政府。随着伊朗政治生态的恶化,四大阶层走向联合,最终推翻了巴列维王朝。     

辛亥革命和中国近代民族主义

中国近代民族主义是梁启超在20世纪初最早提出来的,但后来因为担心它会导致要求推翻清政府的“排满”主张而抛开了这面旗帜。民族主义思潮在留日学生中继续高涨,为中国同盟会提出民族主义纲领做了思想准备,但其中有些人又有着浓烈的狭隘民族主义色彩。孙中山先生对中国近代民族主义的巨大贡献在于：不仅把民族主义同民主、民生幸福紧密地联系起来,而且突出地强调民族平等的观念,既不容许其他民族压迫和奴役本民族,也不容许本民族反过来去压迫和奴役其他民族,而是提倡各民族之间的相互尊重、相互合作。     

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the Holocaust: Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism

Iran espouses the most radical anti-Israeli or anti-Zionist position in the Muslim Middle East, calling for the elimination of Israel. Drawing on anti-Jewish traditions in Shi^ci Islam, Ayatollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, maintained that Zionism is the culmination of the Jewish-Christian conspiracy against Islam and undermines its historical mission. Fusing together Islamic and European anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist ideologies, Iran became a disseminator of Holocaust denial in the Middle East and a sponsor of Western Holocaust deniers. Iran's Holocaust denial, which aims at demolishing the legitimacy of the Jewish state, denies Jewish history and deprives the Jews of their human dignity by presenting their worst tragedy as a scam.     

The Democratic Islamic Republic of Iran in Exile

This paper examines the political, organizational, and ideological shifts necessitated by the chief Iranian oppositional group, the progressive Islamist Mojahedin-e Khalq (People's Mojahedin) organization, beginning with its exile from the Islamic Republic starting in June of 1981 through the present day. An analysis of these shifts is presented as a chronological series of evolving relationships including the Mojahedin's collaboration with a broad-base of oppositional groups and individuals during its Paris exile and founding of the National Council of Resistance (NCR); the Mojahedin's relocation to Baghdad and subsequent foundation of the National Liberation Army (NLA); and the Mojahedin's courtship of Western governments and international organizations to promote its cause. Following the depiction of the transformations undertaken by the Mojahedin throughout these three phases is an analysis of both the status of the organization as a result of these changes and an assessment of the price of exile.     

The Islamic Republic of Iran and the South Caucasus Republics

Deep geopolitical changes in the South Caucasus have considerably influenced the relationships of Iran and the three republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. Geographical location and strategic significance have made this region one of the most important in the world. Because of its historical affinities and socio-cultural links with the region's peoples, the Islamic Republic of Iran has expanded political-economic cooperation with them. The active presence of regional and trans-regional actors has directly affected this relation. This article mainly seeks to examine Iran's relations with the South Caucasus republics, considering the opportunities created since their independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union.     

Women,Nationalism and the Philippine Revolution

Abstract. Filipino women participated actively in the Philippine Revolution (1896–1902), performing a wide range of tasks essential to sustaining the revolutionary challenge against Spanish and American imperialism. Though largely omitted from mainstream histories of the nationalist revolution, women's involvement has been recorded in several marginalised texts. However, these texts have invariably used a limiting format based on presenting biographies of outstanding women. This article suggests an alternative approach, by situating the history of revolutionary Filipino women within a comparative framework. The article outlines key ideas of feminist writers who have analysed women's participation in nationalist struggles from an international perspective. Drawing on these ideas, some new approaches to women in the Philippine Revolution are suggested.     

Cinematic Revolution: Cosmopolitan Alter-cinema of Pre-revolutionary Iran

In the late 1950s, when Iran was witness to the withering away of social norms and everyday practices concomitant with the country's rapid urbanization, a group of young Iranian film directors embarked upon a new cinematic trend, in attempts to screen the ethereal quotidian of Iranian life. Defining itself against what was perceived to be the “cheap” and “repetitive” commercial “Film Farsi” industry of the time, this alternative (alter-)cinema fused the local and global, by incorporating international cinematic elements in socially and politically conscious national films, and projecting them on local and international screens. Problematizing a homogeneous conception of historical time that subsumes the history of cinema into a conventionalized grand narrative of the Iranian 1979 revolution, this article works with a conception of heterogeneous historical time that first interrogates cinematic temporality autonomously and then in relation to the political history of Iran, especially the events of the 1978–79 revolution. This article explores how the distinct cosmopolitan alter-cinema of pre-revolutionary Iran was born from a cinematic rupture in the 1950s, prompted by series of critiques and professional expectations that colored the attention paid to the vernacular and quotidian in film production.