Browsing by Subject "Iran"
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Item Open Access Shukhi-ye Zesht o Tekrāri: Performing Blackness in Iranian Entertainment(2018-04-18) Mostafavi, ParmidaThere persists a lack of consistent critical engagement with issues of race, particularly Blackness, in Iranian spaces, despite the continuous presence of “race” in the Iranian experience. As such engagements with Blackness range from a denial of its existence in Iran to famous rapper Hichkas calling the beloved blackface figure, Hājji Firuz, as shukhi-ye zesht o tekrāri—an ugly and tired joke. This thesis explores what race means in non-Western contexts, specifically through audio-visual manifestations of race in cultural rituals and products. Siāh-bāzi, or “playing black,” blackface performances are a form of traditional theatre in which the blackface character serves as racialized comic relief. Much more common and well-known, Hājji Firuz is a perennial blackface character that announces the coming of spring and the spring New Year (Nowruz), whose racialization is also indispensable to his performances. Finally, in a more authentic portrayal of Black Iranian identity through the character of Bashu in Bahram Beyza’i’s celebrated film Bashu, the Little Stranger (1985), race nevertheless continues to be manifested physically through a visual Othering that becomes somewhat resolved through participation in the nation-state’s institutions and standard language, while at the same time revealing the racism in Iranian society and the failures of the nation-state. In examining representations of Blackness, whether as blackface performances or authentic portrayals, this thesis investigates broader questions of race, Othering, nationalism, and scholarship while questioning the wholesale application of English-language, Western-based theories to an Iranian context and rejecting essentialist analyses.Item Open Access The Iranian Hostage Crisis: A War of Words, not Worlds(2008-10-20T13:24:19Z) Simon, AndrewU.S. media presented the Iranian hostage crisis as a decisive attack against America and therefore the American people. Initially, the media discussed only factual information on the crisis and referred to the players according to their occupation; however, every hostage soon appeared as a victim whose life hung in the balance of terrorists, led by a religious fanatic. No longer were the hostage takers viewed as students under the orders of a religious leader. The purpose behind the embassy takeover and atrocities committed under the U.S.-installed shah regime were never mentioned, at least in the U.S. media intended for the public eye. The absence of the other side’s perspective led to the formation of a unilateral opinion regarding the Iranian hostage crisis, the hostage takers, and the hostages; surely, it was a battle between good and evil forces. President Carter’s administration preached passivity; other politicians, such as former Texas Governor John Connally, devised daring rescue plans in an effort to gain political clout in a fragile America. No matter the course of action advised the victimized hostages had been the main concern and the loss of one life as a motive for war between the U.S. and Iran. Both countries publicly presented their own agendas with conflicting outcomes and neither country was willing to negotiate, a sign of weakness. The outcome of the crisis was the last 52 hostages being freely returned to the United States 444 days later, leading to an unforeseen turn in events. Many of the hostages, who had been depicted as abused and tortured, told stories of sympathy and remorse. Some questioned why America saw the hostage takers as terrorists and not students, while others questioned why America built the hostage crisis into such a spectacle. The hostages’ accounts of American imperialism and Iranian hardship did not make the ten o’clock news; their stories may have led to a more balanced take on the hostage crisis. I intend not to say which view, the hostages or the medias, was correct or wrong, but to present both sides of the Iranian hostage crisis dialogue and analyze the vivid contrasts between the two; I also intend to analyze the internal divisions within the hostage accounts. In a time of great danger, U.S. politics and media worked as one entity and presented an argument drastically different from that of many hostages.Item Open Access The Political Impact of Islamic Fundamentalist Bloc on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict(2010) Park, JaeeunThis study investigates the interaction between political influences of Islamic fundamentalist parties and the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. The author selects four salient actors, based on five characteristics of contemporary Islamic fundamentalist groups: the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, the Palestinian Hamas, the Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Iranian conservatives. With evidences of intertwined supports among them, the author analyzes the cooperative bloc between a state and non-state groups. After Iranian conservatives came to power, Iran's political supports enhanced influences of Hezbollah and Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and then helped Hamas seize power finally. Their radical foreign policies intend to end Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories. The theoretical model generates two predictions about strategies of the bloc. First, high political influence in each government is expected to worsen the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. Second, due to Israel's strong military power, the expected strategy of the bloc is a symbolic war that more rhetoric and less Israeli casualties. Using cross-tabulation model, the author finds that the attack numbers are alone increased along with the high political influences, during the given period between 2000 and 2009. Their strong political power and secure cooperative bloc impede democratizing and promoting peace in the Middle East.
Item Open Access Undeterrable Ideologue or Deterrable Pragmatist: An Assessment of the Rationality of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Conflict Initiating Behavior(2014-04-30) Granlund, MarcusI seek to analyze Iran’s conflict initiating behavior by means of assessing the state’s national capabilities relative to its primary targets of aggression in order to discern whether the Islamic Republic of Iran has experienced a tendency to initiate conflict against relatively more powerful states. Rooted in the fundamental assumption that a rational state does not initiate conflict against other states that are significantly more powerful than it is, the analysis is conducted in the hope of shedding light on whether Iran’s conflict-initiating behavior has been rational post-1979 in order to determine the state’s deterrability. The study is conducted by first employing a cross-temporal within-case study that looks at fluctuations in the dyadic balance of power in militarized interstate disputes (MIDs) initiated by Iran across four distinct periods of time: 1957-1967, 1968-1978, 1979-1989 and 1990-2000. Secondly, Iran’s fluctuations are compared to those experienced by two other revolutionary authoritarian regimes, the Soviet Union and China, during the time period that extends from two decades before their respective revolutions to two decades after. Lastly, I create a control variable comprising 20 randomized MIDs where the initiator’s Composite Index of National Capability (CINC) score falls within the range of Iran’s over the course of its history during the period 1957-2000. The study finds that Iran’s conflict initiating behavior became significantly less rational in the decade immediately succeeding the revolution, but that it thereafter became increasingly rational and less hostile. Importantly, Iranian conflict initiations have, on average, occurred within the confines of rational behavior across each of the four time periods considered, including post-1979. The Islamic Republic thus fits the mold of a deterrable pragmatist rather than an undeterrable ideologue.