What do we know about Iran and the history of Iran? Kim brought up, in her paper yesterday, that she understands Persepolis is taking place in contemporary history. The book takes place in the late 70s when the people of Iran protested for religious freedom and the ending of the Shah. Those protests turned into revolts when patriots looted the city Tabriz. The revolution goes on for three more years and the Islamic Republic took control.
Does anyone have any context for the Shah or can you guess, by who supports him and who doesn't support him, what the Shah was doing? Let's start talking about this history and start thinking about why we, as college students, have so many holes in Middle Eastern history.
Recently, there were riots again in Iran. Do you know what was happening?
people in Iran currently believe that the recent elections were rigged. In a nation that is suck heavily sensored the Iranian people are hearing eachothers voices through the completely unregulated median we call the internet. They are using things such as twitter and facebook to quickly relay their message.
ReplyDeleteThe riots were over the presidential elections. The people of Iran took to the streets after the results came in saying their current president would be keeping his job. The margin that he claimed to win by was absurd and the votes were counted way too fast. Iran's government decided that it was illegal for people to be protesting this decision, and they also revoked the rights of foreign press.
ReplyDeleteThis is very sad, because without a revolution like the one which threw out the Shah in the late 1970's, Iran's government is more than likely to cause conflict with other nations by pursuing the development of their own nuclear weapons.
errr..i don't know much about the iran stuff but i just read the history about how they were votin in 2009 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had won the presidental election
ReplyDeleteNoah, a lot of people were upset when the Shah was overthrown because the new government was even more conservative. Before the Shah developed some iffy foreign relations, he was actually pro academia and very supportive of intellectuals. This did create a more apparent caste system.
ReplyDeleteWhat do you guys think about the fact that few people responded to this issue? What does that say about education and international studies?