From Revolution to Revelation

Khatami's Iran Struggles for Reform

by Geneive Abdo
published in MER211

The revelations came on a January evening and were reminiscent of the days when the Shah’s Savak hit squads ruled Iran. Renegade agents within the country’s secretive Intelligence Ministry admitted to killing secularist writers and politicians they considered enemies of the Islamic state. For weeks, hard-liners within the ministry had been accused of the mystery murders. Iran’s newspapers, which grow in number by the day, were identifying the culprits as members of clandestine conservative factions. Everyone claimed to know the orientation of the assassins, but solid evidence seemed nearly impossible to come by until that night.

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The Imam's Blue Boxes

by Kevan Harris
published in MER257

A fashionable description of the Islamic Republic of Iran is “garrison state,” a concept that originated in the West in the early 1940s. In a garrison state, the ruling elite is mainly composed of “specialists in violence,” and military bureaucrats dominate the social and civil spheres. In Iran’s case, the term is meant to refer to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its rise in the state apparatus. After World War II, however, a group of social historians revised the consensus concerning the social effects of war. Observing the total mobilization of society in wartime, scholars such as Richard Titmuss noticed an increased effort by Western governments to reduce inequality.

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A War on Multiple Fronts

by Nida Alahmad , Arang Keshavarzian
published in MER257

Lasting from 1980 to 1988, the war between Iran and Iraq was the longest inter-state war of the twentieth century. Yet standard narratives of the war, or of Iranian and Iraqi political history, for that matter, barely discuss the war’s legacy for the structure of the two states in question or the war’s effects upon the exercise of political power.

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Deep Traumas, Fresh Ambitions

Legacies of the Iran-Iraq War

by Joost Hiltermann
published in MER257

The seeds of future war are sown even as parties fight and, depleted or on the verge of defeat, sue for peace. The outcome is rarely stable and may be barely tolerable to one side or the other. This rule holds true for the two belligerents no less than for their respective sponsors, keen to protect their strategic interests. Ambitions thwarted are merely delayed, not abandoned; new traumas incurred are entered into the ledger for the settlement of what is hoped one day will be the final bill.

Women's Space/Cinema Space

Representations of Public and Private in Iranian Films

by Norma Claire Moruzzi
published in MER212

Post-Revolutionary Iranian cinema has attracted critical attention abroad while constituting a vibrant focus of cultural, narrative and technical experimentation at home. In the politically restrictive context of the Islamic Republic, film has become one of the key ways that sensitive topics are broached in civil society. One of the most important topics is the social and juridical situation of women, including the enforcement of legislation over women’s hejab, which refers to modest dress but can also mean modest decorum.

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"The Temptation of Democracy"

A Conversation with Morad Saghafi

by Kaveh Ehsani
published in MER212

Launched in 1992, Goft-o-Gu (Dialogue) aimed to open channels of constructive dialogue between Iran’s disparate political and intellectual currents. Given the highly polarized and repressive atmosphere at the time, Goft-o-Gu’s publication was a strikingly bold move. The journal discussed issues that have since become the mainstay of the reform movement in Iran: civil society, reformism, regional and ethnic aspirations, the role of the media, Occidentalism, women, youth, modernity, democracy and the city, among others.

Iran and the United States

A Clash of Hegemonies

by James A. Bill
published in MER212

While visiting the desert city of Yazd during my most recent trip to Iran, a young female physician confronted me in the living room of her family home. The intense, chadored Iranian sharply demanded my answers to four questions: Why did the US oppose the Iranian revolution? Why did the US support Saddam Hussein in his invasion and war against Iran? Why did the United States shoot down the civilian Iranian airbus on July 3, 1988, killing 290 innocent men, women and children? And why did the US lie about this massacre and then proceed to award the captain and the chief weapons officer of the warship medals of commendation?

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"Existing Political Vessels Cannot Contain the Reform Movement"

A Conversation with Sai'id Hajjarian

by Kaveh Ehsani
published in MER212

Sai’id Hajjarian, a leading theorist of the democratic Islamist new left, is one of President Khatami’s closest political advisers. In 1998 he ran for the Tehran City Council, receiving the second largest number of votes. Hajjarian is also the official permit holder for the daily Sobh-e Emrooz and serves on the central committee of the Participation Front, the main left-wing Islamic democratic party. In the early 1980s he was a vice minister in the Intelligence Ministry, and later headed the political bureau of the president’s Strategic Research Center. This interview was conducted on May 19, 1999 and translated from Persian by Kaveh Ehsani.

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Pushing Back the Limits of the Possible

The Press in Iran

by Zarir Merat
published in MER212

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"God Hasn't Died in This Society Yet"

A Conversation with Alireza Alavitabar

by Kaveh Ehsani
published in MER212

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