Political Commentary
War and Resistance
A Radio Payam Conversation with Abdee Kalantari and Siyavash Shahabi.
Political Commentary
Political Commentary
Contextual Orientalism: Freedom for Some, Context for Others
Iran forces a question many Western-left debates avoid: are political rights truly universal? When repression abroad is endlessly contextualized rather than opposed, solidarity dissolves into geopolitical caution and internationalism loses its meaning.
Political Commentary
Reclaiming Grief: When Iranians Turn Sorrow and Rage into Dance
Mourning dance represents a shift in how grief is embodied. Each step challenges fear; each rhythm asserts presence. Dancing bodies become living archives, carrying memory through motion and making forgetting impossible.
Political Commentary
How “Women, Life, Freedom” Was Contained
“Woman, Life, Freedom” began as a plural uprising from Iran’s margins. Through media framing and nationalist reframing, its radical challenge to centralism was narrowed into a single narrative, turning unity into a vehicle for erasure.
Political Commentary
Pahlavism, the Return of "the Father"
The patriarchal logic of monarchy extends beyond dynastic succession. Once detached from the palace, it reappears at the national level, reorganizing political authority through paternal symbolism and demands for loyalty rather than popular consent.
Political Commentary
Vijay Prashad and the Sanctions Frame on Iran
Persian edition 4 February 2026 This essay is not about Iran; it is about the method through which Iran is explained. It examines a mode of thinking that recognizes repression, poverty, and class struggle only as long as they occur in the “right” geography—and the moment they cross an
Political Commentary
The Logic of Regime Change and the Allure of Revolution
From the outset, the concept of “barandāzi” (براندازی) defined itself in opposition to reformism, while at the same time keeping a deliberate distance from its conceptual sibling, revolution.
Political Commentary
Blood and Bones Besieged by Two Camps
Thursday 22 January 2026 Besiege your besiegement, no way out. Your arms fell, pick them up. Strike your enemy, no way out. Mahmoud Darwish From the moment we open our eyes, if we have slept at all, we coil inward like serpents, tightening with each new blow of bad news.
Political Commentary
Power and Shi‘a Theocracy in Iran
Editorial Note (2026): In the wake of the popular protests in Iran in January 2026, public curiosity about the nature of the Islamic Republic, its political architecture, and its internal logic of power has intensified. The essay below, first published in Persian in 2013, is drawn from the archives of
Political Commentary
Structural Crisis and the Expectation of Revolution
In Iran, economic demands are political. Like “Woman, Life, Freedom,” today’s protests are cross-class and pluralistic, binding bread-and-butter grievances to calls for human dignity and freedom, a signature pattern of 21st-century movements.
Political Commentary
After Such Knowledge, What Forgiveness for the Lurs?
The history of the Lurs is scarred by catastrophes under the Pahlavi regime. The puzzle is how that same regime, or its admirers, reshaped memory so that mass killings are minimized and the butchers of Lorestan are not only forgotten, but forgiven.
Political Commentary
Water Management in Iran as Internal Colonialism
Persian edition In late November 2025, outside the Governorate of Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad in Yasuj, a scene unfolded whose very plainness made it one of the most condensed images of the water–development–power nexus in Iran today. ISNA reports that “the people of Yasuj, the provincial capital of Kohgiluyeh