Roundtable on ‘the Aryan race’. BBC Persian Television. گفتگو درباره نژاد آریایی، بی بی سی فارسی
This roundtable was aired on 28 May 2012 on the ‘Pargar’ (compass) talk show on BBC Persian Television. The other participants are Shahrokh Vafadari & Maziar Ashrafian-Bonab.
Courting the former colony: Algeria’s special position in French Third World policy, 1963
Link to article Abstract This article analyses the relationship between France and Algeria in the immediate aftermath of Algerian independence. In 1963, Algeria repeatedly breached the Evian Accords, and continuously threatened France’s national interests. Yet, French policymakers accommodated Algeria’s reassertion and even rewarded it with a generous coopération package. I will argue that this remarkable [...]
Self-Orientalization and Dislocation: The Uses and Abuses of the “Aryan” Discourse in Iran
Link to article Abstract: The claim to belong to the “Aryan race,” believed to be rooted in the ancient self-designation ariya, is a fundamental pillar of the Iranian nationalist discourse. This paper aims to show that in fact it is a twentieth-century import from Europe, where after being instrumentalized for colonial endeavors and Nazi atrocities, [...]
Interview of Reza Zia-Ebrahimi on BBC Persian Newshour
Intervention of Reza Zia-Ebrahimi (in Persian) on the supposed end of multiculturalism, the promotion of Islamophobia to the mainstream of European politics, and David Cameron’s declaration at the 2011 Munich Security Conference
An emissary of the Golden Age: Manekji Limji Hataria and the charisma of the archaic in pre-nationalist Iran
Link to article Abstract: Early nationalist thought in nineteenth-century Iran emphasised the lost glories of the Zoroastrian pre-Islamic past, which it held for a utopian society of refinement, progress, and power destroyed by the advent of Islam. This article aims to show the prominence of this archaistic movement in the early phase of Iranian nationalism [...]
Bombard Iran … with broadband
If the west really wants to support the green movement it should shower the country in free satellite internet access
Comment la Suisse s’est fait berner par la chimere de l’islamisation
Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, doctorant et enseignant à l’Université d’Oxford, passe en revue et réfute les arguments contre les minarets qui ont déferlé sur Internet après le vote de dimanche passé.
Mending a Muslim divide
Link to article The “Shiite crescent” – an alliance of Shiite Iran with Arab Shiite movements in Iraq and Lebanon allegedly committed to dominating the Middle East – has become a popular intellectual shortcut to explaining Muslim affairs in the West. Yet the theory is a flawed one. It ignores the complexity of religious, national, [...]
