Iran: A People Interrupted by Hamid Dabashi

I came across of this book review. It is interesting to learn.

One day, one person brought this book to my attention, and I was unsure about content of the book, I presumed that this book was flaw and lacked historical merit. When that person told me that s/he would buy the book, I informed him/her that I would not buy this book due to my gut feelings. Eventually, my friend the book, and s/he was in total disappointment, and passed the book to me. So, I can read this book and post a comment on amazon website. This book is confession of left wing people in Iran particularly during period of 1979 Revolution in Iran that how the left wing groups in Iran had not attachment to Iran. 1. Dr. Hamdi Dabashi makes it clear that there is no such a country as Iran. According to him Iran is made of sub-nationals; such as, "Kurdish or Azeri cultures in order to corroborate the manufactured primacy of Iran." PG 21. 2. Author goes further and claims that "Iranist-native and foreigners alike-have at times opted for a fictive imperium called "the greater Iran," taking their clues from the imperial heritage of the Achaemenids (550-330 B.C.) and the Sassanids. 3. Author made an allegation that "Plato and Aristotle, "the Persians," as the Greek called them, were up in arms invading other people's lands, occupying their territories, and forming vast, useless, shapeless, and embarrassing empire." PG 22. 4. Cyrus the Great liberated Jewish people in same tone as George Bush liberating Iraqi people. PG 23. 5. Iranian people think that they are Iranian because of "the manufactured of a solitary national and nationalist historiography for Iran has been a principal product of a colonial and colonized imagination, falsely resting the pride of a people's place exclusively in the fabricated idea of a prolonged, uninterrupted, consistent and above all monarchic nation-state." PG 24. The bottom line, this author pervasively claims that there is no such a country as Iran and it is figment of imagination. 6. Author presents a thesis on two grounds. "Iran is the dialectical outcome of two diametrically, one pulling Iran asunder from the edges of its communal fears and the other focusing it on an imaginary center, a wishful gathering of its collective hopes." PG 27. 7. Author's core claim comes down to this point that "the only way out of this paralyzing paradox is narratively to emancipate Iranians from false and falsifying paradox between "tradition" and "modernity" by recasting Iran back to its regional geopolitics and the crosscurrent of cultures that have historically informed and dialectically sustained it". However, author earlier claims that Iran/Persia was figment of imagination and needs to be divided among sub-nationals. 8. Author claims that Safavid Dynasty destroyed Persian language. PG 36. This claim would be rejected by reading following books that Safavid dynasty contributed to Persian language and arts in Iran. 1. Safavid Iran: Rebirth of a Persian Empire (Library of Middle East History) 2. Mystics, Monarchs and Messiahs: Cultural Landscapes of Early Modern Iran (Harvard Middle Eastern Monographs) 9. Author continuously is using vulgar language against individuals that he does not like; such as, "one is dumbfounded today by its unsurpassed imbecility" PG 37. 10. Author needs learn from Howard Baskerville "you know you are not your own." "No", Baskerville responded, "I am Persia". PG 84. 11. Author is ambiguous on notion of modernity. He fails to polish and to define notion of modernity. It appears that he is discussing industrial revolution. 12. Author claims that when Khomeini died on June 03rd, 1989 anti-colonial movement died in Iran. PG 181. 13. Author has loyalty to Islamic Republic of Iran. "Though the United States and its allies did succeed in curtailing the spread of the Islamic Revolution and protecting their regional interests, they soon had ample reason to regret that success." PG 183. 14. Author claims that Reza Shah called himself "the father of the nation". However, after checking around, Reza Shah never made such a claim that he was the father of the nation. It is a well known historical fact that Cyrus the Great is father of Iran. PG 197. 15. Author claims that today Iran has democracy. "In Iran, we have a deeply flawed democracy. But it is a democracy. The ruling clerical elite is an entirely parasitical band of illegitimate and unelected theocrats-but they are integral to a political process that has generated a grassroots democracy." PG 225-226. However, it is fact that people in Iran vote with force and coercive method; such as, food coupon, school registration, enrolling in university, and so on.