Persian Realm

Nato has put Libya into the hands of Friendly Islamists,

The USA/UK backed Muslim brotherhood who now have control of all the weapons and the cities are not under the control of just Libyans, but islamists.  Nato pursued regime change and the targeted assasination of the Libyan leadership and Hijacked the Libyan movement.

Fundamentalism imposed from outside, not democracy, not freedom, not womens rights, not prosperity lets not have any illusions about what the unfortunate people of libya are going to have to look forward to when they want free and monitored elections.

Mash_Ghasem

Start a blog on Fanon, please. He is one of the most important thinkers of a generation, and his ideas - crudely or not crudely formulated - shaped the thinking of many putative revolutionaries of the 1970s in Iran. I love Fanon. Shariati tried to be an Iranian Fanon, as well as other things, but failed in my opinion. I am not however a Marxist but this trilogy has shaped my thinking about politics.

Hope your afternoon ice cream with the kids went well :)

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Tabarzin: correct you are, " Black Skin, White Masks" was his base for further studies. His three major works " Black Skins, White Masks," " A Dying Colonialism," and " The Wretched of the Earth"  should be seen as parts of a unified project, which unfortuantely due to Fanon's early death did not continue.

Apologies once more to DK for all this critical theory discussion. This shall be my last post on this thread, cheers

I don't disagree with you

But to even grasp what Fanon is talking about in the Wretched of the Earth, one must read his Black Skins, White Masks first. The arguments of these two flow and build upon each other. The Wretched of the Earth cannot be taken in isolation from Fanon's earlier works.

Theodore Adorno's critique of Leninism is also quite interesting.

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Apologies to DK for turning your blog into a discussion of Ayan Al Ghozat Hamadani and Lenin.

Me thinks you might actually like Ayan AL Ghozat, cheers

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Tabarzin with all due respect, many readers  including your humble one consider "Wretched of the Earth"  (WE) Fanon's ultimate masterpiece, theoratically, politicaly, programatically. Throughout that text Fanon attempts to creat values, methods, and styles for a revolutionary humanism, one best understood through Fanon's own declarations:

"When I search for Man in the technique and the style of Europe, I see only a succession of negations of man, and an avalanch of mudere" (WE 312) [ I know it sounds like IR!]

"Let us decide not to imitate Erope; let us combine our muscles and our brain in a new direction. Let us try to creat the whole man, whom Europe has been incapable of bringing to a triumphant birth" (WE 313)

" Humanity is waiting for something other from us than such an imitaion...we must invent and we must make discoveries" (WE 315)

" For Europe, for ourselves, and for humanity, comrades, we must turn over a new leaf, we must work out concepts, and try to set affot a new man" (WE 316)

These are Fanon's last published words, his final call to action, and his challenge to the collective conscience of humanity.

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Zizek is not by far my favourite Marxist philosopher, I just pointed him out as an instance of how a critical reading of Lenin is back. For the best reading of Lenin, see Gyorgy Lukacs

Lenin and Unity of hsi thought. Note: Lukacs never uses the unfortunate term "Leninism"

//www.scribd.com/doc/31387137/Lenin-a-Study-o...

Lenin

Was a brutal dictator and his democratic-centralism degraded Marxism into a vanguard party of elites, for elites and by elites. The seed of Stalinism was in Lenin himself. 

I am happy to school in the history of the Russian Revolution and the fascistic ideas of Lenin.

"Tabarzin: What are your thoughts on Bahai's??"

LOL Vildmose, you rascal, you trouble maker :)

Mash Ghassem: Thanks for the links. Also I'd like to hear from you Ostaad: What is it about Lenin which invokes so much hate amongst forces of religious reaction? His success  not only as a brilliant practitioner of Revolutionary marxism in bringing about the first ever state of workers (sadly not long lasting...) or his ensuing massive campaign of anti religion. leading to physical destruction of churches (and mosques....) and their replacement with hospitals, factories, schools....

DK: I truely apologise for turning your excellent blog into a forum for discussions on Revolutionary Marxism, which I dont think was your intention.

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Truth and Narrative: The Untimely Thoughts of Ayn al-Qudat al-Ha

Is a good book, but there are a legion of interpretive problems with his analysis of Ayn'ul-Quzat.  

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VDM: To his credit Dabashi actually did study hard and has a lot more academic training and substance that Shariati ever did.

No Dahbashi as far as I know was never a Shariati 'follower' but always tried to creat his own critique and narrative.

I still enjoy Dahbashi's book on

My main purpose in writing this book is to provide an intellectual portrait
of Ayn al-Qudat al-Hamadhani (49211098-525/1131), one of the most
remarkable figures in medieval Persian intellectual history. Although most
of his writings in Persian and Arabic have been available in critical editions,
there is no single volume that provides a concise statement about his life,
thought, social and intellectual environment, and singular significance in
Islamic and Iranian intellectual history.

Black Skin, White Masks

Is Fanon's main theoretical piece, and the rest of his work must be looked at in relation to it.

Mash_Ghasem

If you read the opening introduction to Theology of Discontent Dabashi goes out of his way to disassociate himself from any specific political program, party, figure or platform. He is writing as an academic analyzing the situation from a particular methodological lense, and I believe he is right that those who framed the so-called Devolution of 1979 saw their intellectual discourse as very much a form of Liberation Theology a la Latin America. To my knowledge, Hamid Dabashi is not a practicing Muslim and his treatment of the Sufi Ayn'ul-Quzat Hamadani has raised more than a few eyebrows amongst Sufi Muslims.

Personally, I don't find Zizek particularly inspiring and Habermas, I believe, has addressed Zizek's neo-Leninism.

Fanon went way beyond " Black Skin, White Masks" in his

" A Dying Colonialism" and his masterpiece " The Wretched of the Earth" in his critique of National Liberation movemnents.

Al Ahamd unfortuantely was a lot more influenced by Fardid than anyone else. Hence his utter garbage nonsense BS on "Westoxication,"thus paving the path intellectually for Khomeni and cohorts.

Sounds like a blog on Fanon might be in order.

 Islamic/Shia Islam

 Islamic/Shia Islam Liberation Theology:  "Theology of Discontent."

Dear Mash Ghasem: does that mean a Shariati follower??

"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe." Robert Browning in 'Ceuciaja'

 Tabarzin: What are your

 Tabarzin: What are your thoughts on Bahai's??

"Whenever a separation is made between liberty and justice, neither, in my opinion, is safe." Robert Browning in 'Ceuciaja'

Revolution at the gates: a selection of writings from Lenin

//books.google.com/books/about/Revolution_at_...

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Mash_Ghasem

The translations of Fanon in Persian have been misleading, I agree with you. Nativist intellectual here means something specific, and does not mean opposition to immigration. It means those intellectuals who advocate not parroting the positions of dominant cultural and intellectual elites where they lose their own unique cultural point of view. In that respect, Fanon was a nativist because his critique of the national bourgeoisie and comprador intellectuals in Black Skin, White Masks advocates this very postion. He is saying in a general context in this book what Jalal Al-e Ahmad said in Gharbzadegi/Westoxication.

What is your problem, man?

You attack anyone who disagrees with you with total impunity. When you are shown to be wrong, then you get nasty. Get a grip! I am not an Evin warden and if we were in Iran right now they would put me inside a prison cell long before you.

Hamid Dabashi is a New Left Marxist.  The New Left crystallized in the 1950s and 1960s as an alternative form of Marxism to the crude Marxism-Leninism dominated by Soviet and Soviet style Marxist thinking. One of the luminary figures of New Left Marxism is the Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci who as a member of the Italian Community Party in the teens and 1920s later critiqued Leninism while a prisoner in a Fascist prison in the 1930s. His Prison Notebooks influenced many post-WW II Marxists and gave impetus to the work of postwar German Marxists like Herbert Marcuse, Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Walter Benjamin, and, slightly later, Jürgen Habermas, i.e. the Frankfurt school of critical theory and Neo-Marxism.

Critical Theory later found French post-structuralist Neo-Marxist intellectuals like Michel Foucault and Jacques Lacan in its wings who blended Marxism with the psychoanalytical theories of Freud and the existentialist philosophy of Nietzsche. This was followed by Jacques Derrida and postmodernist critical theory. Add the anti-colonialist Marxist Franz Fanon and Edward Said's critique of European Orientalist discourses, and you have the intellectual make-up of Hamid Dabashi.

Whatever you think about it, this is the Marxism of the Western Anglo-European scene and has been for over 40-50 years now. Other than historians of ideas, no one in the world of Western Marxism takes Lenin seriously anymore. Lenin has been passe amongst Western Marxists for most of that time.

These are the facts whether you like it or not.

Tabarzin: Is Fanon's critique of National Bourgeoisie, also a

part of his "Nativism?" Fanon is not a 'Nativists" by any strech of imagination. We (Iranian readers) in Iran through bad translations and other distortions have turned this world class thinker into a "nativists" at our own peril.

"Crude Marxists who still cling to Lenin Gospel"

here an alternative , some would argue much more valid  statement:

"Crude Muslims who still cling to Ali's Quran"

Dabashi is not a Marxist, that was clear from my comment had it been read, and understood well.

I take it "niacist" is a new sub species of "nativist"  which itself being a sub specied of "pacifo islamist", feeding mainly on green petro dollars !

p.s. only commented because your comment was made in response to mine. Otherwise, respectfully, I have no desire in engaging a religious zealot in a circular debate, unless forced to do so under extreme pressure at Evin Jail..... 

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Dabashi is not a Leninist

And neither are most contemporary Marxist intellectuals any more because Leninism is crude Marxism and holds giant problems - begin with democratic centralism for starters which is anything but democratic. Besides Marx himself, especially the Marx of the German Ideology and Das Kapital, Hamid Dabashi's influences include the Italian Antonio Gramsci, the Frankfurt school (Herbert Marcuse et al), French structuralist thinkers and postmodernists such as Foucault, Lacan and Derrida, and nativists like Franz Fanon and Edward Said. Most post-Soviet Marxist intellectuals moved away from Lenin and Leninism a long time ago, especially in the '60s. It is a tiny handful of crude Marxists who still cling to Lenin as gospel.

Ok baba, bi-khial

Now asking a question is reverse psychology, lol.

Imperialism, the Highest state of Capitalism?

Mr. Dabashi is very wrong here. V.E. Lenin would tell him so!

I dont consider Mr Dabashi to be a Marxist, let alone a Lenin Scholar. But he like many of his generation seems to have this obsession with the Leninist concept of "Imperialism", without fully understanding the contents and context of what and when Lenin wrote in his brilliant pamphlet on how capitalism uses Imperialism as a means of survival and expansion.....

Far from being a "Lenin Scholar" myself, what I learnt and still do from reading the works of of this most brilliant -yet by no means faultless- mind and practitioner of Revolutionary Marxism is adjustment of ones theory to realities on ground, to avoid bitter defeat.

"Personal business must yield to collective interest."

Why don't I answer ...

Why don't I answer all your questions?

The reason is that I have noticed that one of the techniques some people use here is to bully other users to get them to support their point of view; when I see that happening on a particular topic, I don't incentivize that behavior by responding to it.  It's as simple as that.  I'd do the same thing if people kept asking me to vote for Ronald Reagan by accusing me of being an agent of Fidel Castro from the first day I become a member of a site. (Even before I signed up, I also noticed that this was happening).  In my humble opinion, it sets a bad precedent to give in to those types of bullying tactics - I'm an independent-minded thinker (or at least like to think I am) and I am allergic to strong-arm tactics.

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 Sorry, reverse psychology also doesn't work on me - I appreciate the effort.  But I meant it when I said I am allergic to when people employ manipulative or strong-arm tactics to try to get me to endorse their point of view, and that i'd rather not comment on a topic when someone repeatedly bullies, cajoles, or insists that their viewpoint be supported.  Sometimes Iranians need to learn to take "no" for an answer ... whatever fantasies you spin from that are aspects of your own character flaws, not mine.  

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"by Reality-Bites on Tue Aug 23, 2011 01:20 AM PDT As it seems to the way with you, you avoided answering, with some hachal-haft excuse.  It is totally your right to answer or not. Nobody is forcing you. But let me say one thing, the more you prevaricate, the clearer it becomes where you stand on the issue." 

BoosBoos, nobody is bullying you

People here ask each other questions all the time. That is how we find out about each other's views on issues, when this is not otherwise clear. There is no big conspiracy, no bullying. After all, that is part and parcel taking part in a discussion forum, is it not?.

I simply asked you a straight question as to where you stand on the IR's rule over Iran. As it seems to the way with you, you avoided answering, with some hachal-haft excuse.

It is totally your right to answer or not. Nobody is forcing you. But let me say one thing, the more you prevaricate, the clearer it becomes where you stand on the issue.

@ Reality-Bites, Here's your answer

" by Reality-Bites on Tue Aug 23, 2011 12:29 AM PDT BoosBoos, you keep moaning about these groups, but you never seem to address the root cause of Iran's problems, namely the IR. Why is that? "  ------------ My Reasons:   The reason is that I have noticed that one of the techniques some people use here is to bully other users to get them to support their point of view; when I see that happening on a particular topic, I don't incentivize that behavior by responding to it.  It's as simple as that.  I'd do the same thing if people kept asking me to vote for Ronald Reagan by accusing me of being an agent of Fidel Castro from the first day I become a member of a site. (Even before I signed up, I also noticed that this was happening).  In my humble opinion, it sets a bad precedent to give in to those types of bullying tactics - I'm an independent-minded thinker (or at least like to think I am) and I am allergic to strong-arm tactics.  

I don't like the likes of MEK, Jundallah etc either

And I'm certainly against any group advocating/endangering the territorial integrity of Iran, but these are groups are not the ones who have been in charge of Iran for the past 32 years; the IR has.

The Iran is the mess that it find itself in because of the IR and its policies, not because of fringe groups like MEK or Jundallah, that have practically no influence inside Iran.

BoosBoos, you keep moaning about these groups, but you never seem to address the root cause of Iran's problems, namely the IR. Why is that?

Every Government Changes over Time

Even though every government changes over time, whomever leads in Iran has to distance themselves from groups like PMOI/MEK; PKK/PJAK, Jundallah and the other such groups -- those groups want to violate the territorial integrity of Iran. The majority of the Iranian people will never accept these types of groups.  It's a fact ... and I'm happy it's a fact. 

You can't reform the unreformable

Because the whole essence of the unreformable is against reforms, openness and all round improvement. The regime has shown this over and over again in the past 32 years. When are some people going to get wise to the true nature of this degenerate entity? How much more "kesaafat-kaari does this regime have to commit before the penny finally drops?

Sooner or later, the IR has to be taken out, root and branch. There is no other way to deal with it.

Reforming IR is akine to democratizing Nazi Germany

The number one threat to territorial integrity of Iran: Islamic Republic of Hell.

The most organized terrorist entitiy in Iran: Islamic Republic of Hell.

The number one source of all problems in Iran: Islamic Republic of Hell.

Total annihilation of Islamic Republic of Hell, THE ONLY PATH TO PEACE AND PROSPERITY FOR THE IRANIAN NATION.

Down with IR and all its blood thirsty apologists. You know who you are.