Stories Archive | Page 77 of 84

Analyses

The history of the Islamic Republic of Iran—established in 1979 following the revolution that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—is marked by a dense sequence of developments that have progressively altered its political and institutional configuration. These changes, however, have only sporadically been recognized by Western analyses, which have instead tended to perpetuate a more functional and instrumental stereotype based on the image of a monolithic, highly verticalized religious autocracy. While such a characterization was broadly accurate during the first decade of the Islamic Republic, it has undergone a profound transformation since 1989.

Political Theory
India: Spectacular Lies Should Help Digesting Narendra Modi’s campaign?
Ananya Vajpeyi 9 April 2014

As India enters its 2014 general election to constitute the 16th Lok Sabha, the spectacle of prominent commentators adjusting their views towards the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi unfolds before our eyes with escalating frequency and vivid clarity. These adjustments — to use a term that is more descriptive than judgmental, at least for starters — take a variety of forms, and come from a range of observers, analysts and experts.
Political Theory
Egypt, Repression of Dissent and Free Speech Continues
Federica Zoja 12 February 2014

The weekly magazine The Economist reported on the current repression in Egypt, a country addressing the effects of a second lethal revolutionary euphoria, saying, “the re-emboldened security services have increasingly been hammering the whole gamut of opposition, from secular reformers to every type of Islamist.” The enthusiasm, with decisive support provided by the army, that had resulted in the overthrow of the Islamist President Mohammed Morsi on July 30 2013, must now deal with an abrupt awakening.
Political Theory
No to Thomas Friedman’s “Same War, Different Country”
Mohammed Hashas 9 September 2013

Thomas Friedman wrote on New York Times on 07 September 2013 a piece entitled “Same War, Different Country”, in which he justifies the US (coming) intervention in Syria after the Assad army has been accused of using chemical weapons against civilians on 21 August 2013. While Assad’s brutal force has clearly caused terrible damage to the country and its people since 2011, I seize the occasion to make few notes about Friedman’s reasoning for going into a war for that matter. Some earlier solution could have been found, any time before August 2013. A military intervention does not seem the right solution, and the reasoning that fuels it seems the most inadequate and unreasonable.
Philosophy
Living Together, differently. Our Symposium on India and Europe Now Available
Ananya Vajpeyi 2 September 2013

Reset-Dialogues on Civilizations is pleased to present the special September issue of the Indian magazine Seminar, with contributions by leading international scholars who gathered in Venice for the 2012 edition of our Venice-Delhi Seminars.
Political Theory
Presidential Elections in Iran. All Set to Choose Ahmadinejad’s Successor
Antonella Vicini 14 June 2013

After the final frantic hours of election campaigning, Tehran and the rest of the country now await voting results. Since 8 a.m. over 50 million people have been called upon to choose between six candidates, Said Jalili, Baqer Qalibaf, Ali Akbar Velayati, Hassan Rouhani, Mohsen Rezaei and Mohammad Gharazi. Of these, according to Interior Ministry data published on Sunday, 1.5 million will be voting for the very first time, meaning they turned eighteen after June 2009. There are 60,000 polling station and in Tehran, which has 14 million inhabitants in its constituency, there are 6,000 polling stations set up in mosques, schools, banks and even mobile ones with 12,000 booths.
Political Theory
Safe to speak? The challenges of democracy and press freedom in Turkey
Emanuela Pergolizzi 5 June 2013

On March 18 a symbolic funeral march was staged in front of Turkey’s historic left-wing newspaper, the Milliyet, for the silent “death” of one of its most honorable authors. Hasan Cemal, 69 years, “dies” as a provocative columnist after having defended the disclosure of the minutes from a meeting between the representatives of the Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) and PKK’s leader Abdullah Öcalan. The leaked record helped the nationalist front to criticize the government’s negotiation with the Kurdish leader. “If this is journalism, down with it!” cried Prime Minister Erdoğan, and the writer was suddenly suspended.
Human Rights
Orientalism in Africa? The ICC and the case of Laurent Gbagbo
Nicoletta Fagiolo 30 May 2013

Let us imagine for a moment that at the November 1945 Nuremburg trials, which were held so as to condemn those responsible for instigating World War II and the Holocaust, a Prosecutor decided, by distorting the historical account of the wars’ events, to press charges for crimes against humanity during WWII against Franklin Delano Roosevelt[1]. There were surely crimes committed by American soldiers fighting the Nazi regime, yet would this make Roosevelt a just target for crimes committed during World War II? A similar historical and thus juridical incoherence is currently being played out at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague in the case the Prosecutor vs Laurent Gbagbo.
Political Theory
The Global Great Game and Dialogue through Nongovernmental Actors
Raffaele Marchetti, Luiss University 22 May 2013

In the world there are four and only four great powers. They are China, the EU, Russia, and the USA. Beyond the traditional economic and military capabilities, what makes an important power a great power is, arguably, its ability to project a world vision. A precondition for this is the ability to formulate a master frame of world order. I claim that, as of today, only four great powers have developed a fairly sophisticated model of world order and have attempted, with a certain degree of success, to spread its content worldwide so to make their national normative projection global.
Philosophy
Migration and Identities in the Globalized World
Zygmunt Bauman 13 May 2013

Claiming that reason and our normative concepts change together with the human practices and the challenges that the human condition and social reality are positing, Zygmunt Bauman maintains that politics today has to accommodate the fact of multiculturalism brought about by globalization. Given the changing patterns of global migration, diasporas and communities nowadays extend over many sovereign territories and bring to the political agenda the issue of ‘art of living with a difference’. The challenge we are facing is to balance the yearning for individual freedom of self-creation with its in-built inconclusiveness, uncertainty, hesitation and contradictions under the liquid-modern conditions with the equally strong desire of security that only communities can offer. The answer to this challenge is the creation of a truly global public space, in which we can renegotiate our multiple identities and restructure networks on the basis of global interdependencies and interactions.
Philosophy
Translating Truth
Maeve Cooke, University College Dublin 9 April 2013

The article considers the role of translation in encounters between religious citizens and secular citizens. It follows Habermas in holding that translations re-articulate religious contents in a way that facilitates learning. Since he underplays the complexities of translation, it takes some steps beyond Habermas towards developing a more adequate account. Its main thesis is that the required account of translation must keep sight of the question of truth. Focusing on inspirational stories of exemplary figures and acts, it contends that a successful translation makes truth appear anew; further, that it is the central role of truth in translation that enables the prospect of learning from the inspirational messages of religion. By highlighting truth as the point of continuity between intercultural learning and learning from religion, it provides support for the thesis that encounters between religious and secular citizens are a subset of intercultural encounters and, as such, contexts of possible mutual learning.