In the Western media and Iran, supporters and opponents of the so-called Green Movement both have used the term "velvet revolution" to describe what Iran has gone through in the aftermath of its June presidential election. What are the local, regional, and global factors that facilitate and block sociopolitical changes in the country?
The conversation features Charles Kurzman (University of North Carolina), Abdolali Rezai (University of Calgary), and Danny Postel (Journalist and Activist), with an introduction from Simon Critchley (The New School).
Bio
Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley was born in Hertfordshire in 1960, and currently lives and works in New York as Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. He works in continental philosophy, the history of philosophy, literature, ethics and politics.
Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political. These two axes may be said largely to inform his published work: religious disappointment raises the question of meaning and has to, as he sees it, deal with the problem of nihilism; political disappointment provokes the question of justice and raises the need for a coherent ethics. The Book of Dead Philosophers is his eighth book.
Charles Kurzman
Charles Kurzman is a Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His recent research is in the area of Islamic studies. He is an author of several books and many articles.
Among his most prominent publications are: The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran and Democracy Denied, 1905-1915: Intellectuals and the Fate of Democracy.
Danny Postel
Danny Postel is the author of Reading "Legitimation Crisis" in Tehran (2006) and the co-editor (with Nader Hashemi) of The Green Movement Reader (forthcoming). He is a Contributing Editor of Logos, a Correspondent for LabourStart, and a member of the editorial board of The Common Review. He is Communications Coordinator for Interfaith Worker Justice, North America Co-Chair of the Iran Labor Support Committee, and a member of Chicago's No War on Iran Coalition. His work has appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Commonweal, Critical Inquiry, The Guardian, In These Times, The Nation, New Humanist, openDemocracy, The Progressive, Salmagundi, Tehran Bureau, and the now-banned Iranian newspapers Shargh and Etemad Melli. His interviews with Iranian intellectuals have been translated into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Serbo-Croatian, Hungarian, and Persian.
Abdolali Rezaei
Abdolali Rezaei is a professor of sociology at the University of Calgary.
Country, Middle East, southwestern Asia. Area: 636,374 sq mi (1,648,200 sq km). Population (2009 est.): 74,196,000. Capital: Tehran. Persians constitute the largest ethnic group; other ethnic groups include Azerbaijanians, Kurds, Lurs, Bakhtyari, and Baloch. Languages: Persian (Farsi; official), numerous others. Religions: Islam (official; predominantly Shi'ite); also Zoroastrianism. Currency: rial. Iran occupies a high plateau, rising higher than 1,500 feet (460 metres) above sea level, and is surrounded largely by mountains. More than half of its surface area consists of salt deserts and other wasteland. About one-tenth of its land is arable, and another one-fourth is suitable for grazing. Iran's rich petroleum reserves account for about one-tenth of world reserves and are the basis of its economy. It is a unitary Islamic republic with one legislative house and several oversight bodies dominated by clergy. The head of state and government is the president, but supreme authority rests with the rahbar (leader), a ranking cleric. Human habitation in Iran dates to some 100,000 years ago, but recorded history began with the Elamites c. 3000 BCE. The Medes flourished from c. 728 but were overthrown in 550 by the Persians, who were in turn conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. The Parthians (seeParthia) created an empire that lasted from 247 BCE to 226 CE, when control passed to the Sasanian dynasty. Various Muslim dynasties ruled from the 7th century. In 1501 the Safavid dynasty was established and lasted until 1736. The Qajar dynasty ruled from 1796, but in the 19th century the country was economically controlled by the Russian and British empires. Reza Khan (seeReza Shah Pahlavi) seized power in a coup (1921). His son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi alienated religious leaders with a program of modernization and Westernization and was overthrown in 1979; Shi'ite cleric Ruhollah Khomeini then set up an Islamic republic, and Western influence was suppressed. The destructive Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s ended in a stalemate. Since the 1990s the government has gradually moved to a more liberal conduct of state affairs.
In politics, fundamental, rapid, and often irreversible change in the established order. Revolution involves a radical change in government, usually accomplished through violence, that may also result in changes to the economic system, social structure, and cultural values. The ancient Greeks viewed revolution as the undesirable result of societal breakdown; a strong value system, firmly adhered to, was thought to protect against it. During the Middle Ages, much attention was given to finding means of combating revolution and stifling societal change. With the advent of Renaissance humanism, there arose the belief that radical changes of government are sometimes necessary and good, and the idea of revolution took on more positive connotations. John Milton regarded it as a means of achieving freedom, Immanuel Kant believed it was a force for the advancement of mankind, and G.W.F. Hegel held it to be the fulfillment of human destiny. Hegel's philosophy in turn influenced Karl Marx. See alsocoup d'état.
Listening carefully I get the feeling these folks are fooling themselves. There is no separation of church and State and as long as there is a Supreme being that controls the military-police-gov`t, nothing will change mental masterbation by institutionalized thinking, your stroking yourself, THE KING MUST DIE and until they separate mosque from State, Religion from politics, there will be no freedom of expression,religion,education and women and gay rights. So where are the persian heroes, just a bunch of tweeters like birds on a wire, where Islam calls all the shots and the bird is always in the cage. All these demonstrations only release the energy like a valve when they begin to grow, the Supreme leader Supremely calls out the police-military to abuse the people.As long as muslims, and Islam in general think they can dominate the world when Iran has nukes, this is still a romantic idea for all Iranians whether they demonstrate or not. The HIDDEN agenda Islamic Nukes to dominate the world still prevails in all and to use Zionism as the excuse for more hatred and national unity .Iranians; They love the idea regardless which side of the fence they fall. thank you.
It seems a little bit exaggeration, a fascination of sociology with cameras and technology. May I remind the photography of "Larmes d'eros" , the book by Georges Bataille, which depicts in the lingchi the fading of the subject knowing-ignoring (his) death and (his) jouissance, "here and now". Lacan wrote in 1960 ("Kant with Sade") that the sadistic drive aims to the division of the subject in its most intimate place of election. Modern psychoanalysis confronts this place of subjective division, and so places these "cruel technologies of journalism" in a position where they can be more clearly formulated.
member. 
