HAMID DABASHI

This [American] empire will not last. No empire does. If empires lasted, the whole world would be speaking ancient Persian today.

This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement

The visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur'anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity.

While [European] national cultures were concocted to distinguish one economic unit of capital from another, civilizational thinking was invented to unify these cultures against their colonial consequences. Islamic, Indian, or African civilizations were invented contrapuntally by Orientalism…in order to match, balance and thus authenticate ‘Western Civilization’.

Shi'ism is a religion of protest. It can never succeed without negating itself. When it succeeds, Shi'ism is in double jeopardy. In the Islamic context at large, it partakes in the masculinism of its transcendental deity and in the Iranian context in particular it exacerbates itself by partaking in monarchical masculinity.

This [American] empire will not last. No empire does. If empires lasted, the whole world would be speaking ancient Persian today.

While [European] national cultures were concocted to distinguish one economic unit of capital from another, civilizational thinking was invented to unify these cultures against their colonial consequences. Islamic, Indian, or African civilizations were invented contrapuntally by Orientalism…in order to match, balance and thus authenticate ‘Western Civilization’.

Shi'ism is a religion of protest. It can never succeed without negating itself. When it succeeds, Shi'ism is in double jeopardy. In the Islamic context at large, it partakes in the masculinism of its transcendental deity and in the Iranian context in particular it exacerbates itself by partaking in monarchical masculinity.

The visual possibility of seeing the historical person (as opposed to the eternal Qur'anic man) on screen is arguably the single most important event allowing Iranians access to modernity.

This is Not Another Revolution. This is a Civil Rights Movement