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Iran
Pietro Marcenaro talks to Ernesto Pagano
A country with an stoppable demand for change and one where not even “state terrorism” has managed to triumph over those opposing it. That is the Iran that PD Senator and President of the Senate’s Human Rights Committee Pietro Marcenaro saw. The Senator has just returned from a private visit to the Islamic Republic. With its mass protests, conflict affecting both the clergy and the ruling classes, as well as international pressure about its nuclear programme, this country seems to be at a crossroads. “It is our great responsibility,” says Marcenaro, “to listen to these people and not abandon those fighting for freedom.”
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Migrations
Gian Antonio Stella talks to Federica Zoja
During a meeting held with students protesters from the Berchet High School in Milan, ResetDoc interviewed the Corriere della Sera leader-writer and correspondent Gian Antonio Stella, fresh from the success of his recent book Negri, froci, giudei & co. L’eterna lotta contro l’altro, a history of racism in Italy. This subject is currently headline news after recent events in Rosarno, a municipality in the Province of Reggio Calabria, that was the setting for clashes between central-African immigrants and members of the local community.
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Iran
A conversation with Karim Mezran
“In Iran we are seeing a back to front revolution with the upper-middle classes protesting against a governing power managed by the poorer and less-educated classes, the main recruitment group for the basiji and for President Ahmedinejad’s base of support.” According to Karim Mezran, director of the Centre for American Studies and a professor at Johns Hopkins School of International Advanced Studies in Bologna, this is however a “leaderless protest” organised by a generation that has only known the Islamic Republic and that sees Moussavi and Karroubi as reference points, “certainly not as leaders.”
Interview by Ernesto Pagano.
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Iran
Hossein Bashiriyeh interviewed by Danny Postel
Several moderate and reformist parties which had been regarded as members of the family of the Revolution are now being castigated as counter-revolutionary. Now – however – is the worst time for the U.S. government to pursue a policy of engagement, as the regime in Iran is at its worst; it should have tried when the Iranian regime was at its best, that is during the Khatami presidency (of course the Iranian fundamentalist groups were opposed to it at the time).
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Unesco Philosophy Day
Fabio Chiusi
Opposing Teheran’s candidature to host the next World Philosophy Day does not mean inflicting “philosophical sanctions” on Iran, nor does it mean “boycotting” a UNESCO initiative in the name of an assumed “priority of democracy over philosophy.” Marcello Veneziani is mistaken when in Il Giornale he attributes such ideas to those who, like Giuliano Amato and the members of Resedoc’s scientific committe, emphasise it would be grotesque to make a place “in which one can risk one’s life in the name of one’s ideas” the capital of doubt and critical debate. Veneziani is wrong, because if it is true that philosophy is exalted wherever humankind needs saving, it is equally true that it is certainly not the executioner who concedes a philosopher’s right to citizenship. What is at stake is understanding who or what could guarantee a free exchange of ideas between participants, should they meet in November 2010 in the capital of Ahmedinejad’s regime. Veneziani himself perhaps?
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Women
Kamal Ahmad talks to Valeria Fraschetti
“In Asia female disempowerment is still a big issue and the history of the region is constantly marked by ethnic and religious clashes.” That is why Kamal Ahmad founded the Asian University for Women in Bangladesh, where the leadership potential of women is cultivated and a new sense of tolerance is taught. In this interview he speaks of his project and of how, thanks to scholarships, women from all over Asia learn to aspire to have different lives than their mothers.
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FR
Unesco
Giuliano Amato, Giancarlo Bosetti, Ramin Jahanbegloo
Giuliano Amato, Giancarlo Bosetti and Ramin Jahanbegloo, members of Resetdoc’s scientific committee, have written a letter to UNESCO’s General Director Irina Bokova to prevent the 2010 World Philosophy Day from being hosted by Iran. Doing so would make mockery of the victims of repression, in a country where one can be imprisoned or killed for expressing one’s ideas. “We are certain that we will not be alone in our concern in presenting such an urgent appeal – the authors write – and invite philosophers and intellectuals from all over the world to join us in this by sending a message of support to info@resetdoc.org.”
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Culture
Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd talks to Ernesto Pagano
The Egyptian intellectual Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, a member of Resetdoc’s Board of Directors, has no doubts; the worst enemy of freedom of thought in the Arab world is “the Catholic marriage between Islam and politics.” It was this marriage that last December induced Kuwaiti authorities, under pressure from Islamist members of parliament, to refuse him entry at the border after previously giving him a visa. “This is the first time it has happened,” said Abu Zayd. On the day he was refused entry, the liberal theologian was obliged to get back on a plane at Kuwait City’s Sheikh Saad Airport, where he had earlier landed to speak at the Women’s Cultural Social Society about the manner in which women are seen in Shari’a and in the Koran and the reform of the Islamic school of thought.
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Culture
Isabella Camera D'Afflitto talks to Elisa Pierandrei
A professor of Arab Language and Literature at ‘La Sapienza’ University in Rome, Isabella Camera D'Afflitto is one of the most important Arab language scholars in Italy. For many years she also taught at the Oriental Institute in Naples and now writes for newspapers, publishers and magazines to promote knowledge of Arab literature in Italy. She is a member of the prestigious international jury at the Sharjah Prize for Arab Culture promoted by UNESCO, an award she herself was a finalist for in 2003. In 2006 she won the Grinzane Cavour Award for translations and the Cairo Literary Award for Translation. She has translated some of the greatest Arab authors, among them Nobel Prize winner Nagib Mahfuz, ‘Abd al-Rahman Munif, Ghassan Kanafani, Emil Habibi and Latifa Zayyad.
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After Copenhagen
Emanuela Scridel
The European Union has confirmed its characteristic of being an “economic giant” and a “political dwarf” and its weakness – that should decrease thanks to the Lisbon Treaty – in speaking effectively with “one voice”, only way to weigh in the renewed international context. How can we explain its marginal role?
