Abulfazl Hasani, in charge of the so called "office of expansion" of the ministry of sciences has announced that the following departments will no longer receive incentives for academic development and expansion. Although, they will continue to accept students, the current curriculum is based on Western schools of thinking, and does not correspond to Islamic Principles. Within the next 5 years, these departments must undergo at least 70% revision. This means 70 percent of current professors will be out of a job within the next five years--a process which has already begun since Ahmadinejad took Office in 2005, and intensified after the election. (Interestingly, according to statistics reported by supreme leaders special representative in December 2009, 70% of Iranian academics did not vote for Ahmadinejad. Many of them were openly campaining for Mousavi or Karoubi BEFORE the election.)
The doomed departments are:
- Law
- Women Studies
- Human Rights
- Management
- Cultural management
- Art
- Sociology
- Philosophy
- Psychology
- Political Science
- Social Sciences
- Education
In fact, by August 2010; out of 52 Principals of Iran's state universities, 49 were replaced or retired!
In March 2010, The Minister of Science, the plagiarizer Kamran Daneshju (who was also in charge of Election Fraud!) announced that they plan to cleanse Academia of any members who are not faithful to the Supremacy of the leader and operate outside of the regime's interest and agenda.
Such academic upheaval is not unprecedented. Shortly after the so called victory of the Islamic Revolution, Iranian universities were closed to undergo cultural revolution to 'cleanse' universities from Westernized academics. The cultural revolution coincided with the war. Many of the young men who were deprived of seeking university education were automatically drafted by the Army and sent to the trenches of Iran-Iraq war. (Men can postpone the mandatory military service if they are in school).
The irony is that some of the initiators of the cultural revolution, such as Abdulkarim Soroush and Mostafa Mo'in, are now the victims of the second round of cultural revolution! And some of the graduates of the post-cultural-revolution humanity programs, the ex-IRGC member Akbar Ganji and ex-Intelligence officers such as Saeed Hajjarian have become some of the most ardent opponents of the IRI and the supremacy of the Grand leader!
Knowledge evolves organically; it is an adaptive response to a historic necessity. I am not too worried if they will ban Deleuze or Sartre out of Iranian schools; we will carve existentialist postmodernity out of Molla Sadra (16 AD) or Sohravardi (12 AD)--and this won't be re-invention of the wheel either; would be rediscovery of it! Despotism, in its medieval forms, is doomed. The Iranian despot are better off wearing a more modern cloak.
9 comments:
Khamenei has a point.
But the realization of his goal, namely a complete overhaul of humanities in the light of Islamic Thought will take several centuries. It cannot be ordered from above.
They should have started from Kalam philosophy, Suhrewardi, or Allameh Tabatabai. But no, that would take too long and require one to actually labor and think.
these things won't even take a lot of effort. It would have taken a few grants; setting up a budget for researchers in humanity to "illustrate" the Oriental origins of many a western/post-industrial philosophy.
This would have employed hundreds of graduate students, would have given them purpose and meaning and self worth, and distracted them from futile political cynicism. And then, for this grant to WORK, they had to have set up review boards. allowed everyone apply and select the best of teh applications, not based on affiliation and ideological membership, but based on merit, and with respect for diversity.
With these policies, what they are doing, is that they are tarnishing a lot of our heritage philosophers, aligning them with their narrowminded despotism, and furthering their obscurity.
But Khamenei is a megalomanic. He is seeking a name for himself in the history; and if it takes to act like a moron, before his death, to be remembered, he won't hesitate!
You are underestimating the effort. Just criticism of the Western Scholarship alone will take decades. Many scholars are needed to analyze the works of Vico, Machiavelli, Rousseau, Montesquieu, Locke, Beacon, Mill, Durkheim, Levi-Strauss, Weber, Marx, Hegel, Goethe, and others.
To affect this criticism, they have to learn first the Western Literary Criticism. They have to learn Latin, French, German, English.
And then, at the same time, they have to develop the foundations or world-outlook from which to proceed on their job of criticism, modification, and assimilation.
Then you have the extra problem of schools of thought: which one is the “Islamic One” – Kalam, Neo-Platonism of Rumi, Realism of Tabatabai, Philosophy of Light of Suhrewardi and Mulla Sadra?
I like Khamenie because his Office has kept dictatorship at bay in Iran.
And everything he has done he has done bravely for Iran.
CAn you just enlighten me on "khamenei having kept deictatorship at bay?"
you mean he lives on the bay?!
After the Iranian Revolution, there emerged various "in-group" factions that were competing for power.
These factions could not govern by themselves; they undercut and sabotaged one another.
They had to go back to Qom and drag Khomeini back and write the Office of the Supreme Jurisprudent into the Iranian Constitution to give him an official position.
Then Khomeini, throught the Office of the Supreme Jurisprudent, could intervene in the affairs of the state and try to adjudicate among these narrow-minded and foolish men who cared more about their own personal advancement than Iran.
With is death, and Khamenei assuming that Office, the pattern re-asserted itself. These factions jockeying for power within the Iranian system and potentially undermining the system itself.
These factions, if they could, would not have hesitated in murdering their opponents and establishing a dictatorial system. Similar to the situation after the Revolution of 1905.
The Office of Supreme Jurisprudent has maintained the equilibrium among these factions. To see the vanity of these factions you need to look no further than Mr. Mousavi and Rafsanjani clique who plunged Iran into political crisis to further their political aims.
Without that office, one of these factions would have imposed its dictatorship by now; in my opinion. These factions do not respect the Rule of Law or Constituional Order.
that fact that "akhund-jema'at" is a petty narrowminded greedy bunch of idiots, there is no doubt!
But, what has Khamenei surrounded himself with? And what is HE doing taht it not petty and narrowminded.
There was an EXCELLENT moment for him to SHINE in the history and prove all your theories right, there was a moment in our history that held my breath and hoped he did what was the justification for his postion: TO MODERATE LIKE A KING, AND TO MODERATE IMPARTIALLY!
But what the fuck did he do? Insult 13 million people? threatening them to blood and death? Creating "enemies" out of imaginary ghosts? HE FAILED; he failed by siding with Ahmadinejad, unquestionably.
He could have ordered investigation into the election fraud charges.
He could have refrained from ebacking Ahmadinejad before the election.
He could have not ordered teh parliament and not have forced them to ratify Ahmadinejad's incompetent and corrupt cabinet.
He could have spoken to ALL of the Iranians, without dividing them into enemy and friend.
He could have acted DIFFERENTLY than the dictator he proved himself to be.
I have known, that when he was young, he beat his children like animals to correct them. That is his menatility-- that is the sick mentality of our nation. And the sick mentality of people men like you. Who despite having mental faculties to be intelligent, are dogmatic, stubborn and TOO SELFISH to let the go the power they have forcefully gotten in that patriarchic land.
Khamenei failed Iran at the WORST possible time ... because of all those obvious majour things I pointed above. AND BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU ALSO ACKNOWLEDGED IN YORU FIRST COMMENT:
ordering top-down, the closure of university departments ... he is a top-down commander; thus a DICTATOR!
He is a mullah too, by the way. He is just as petty as any akhund.
For the pseudo-fascist, Pen Name:
http://www.roozonline.com/persian/opinion/opinion-article/archive/2010/november/01/article/-3c79b06693.html
iran e-mazloom
Where Mr. Khamenei failed was in sqashing the change in election law that Mr. Khatami was proposing.
In that manner, by denying representation to the 3-million Tehranis and others like them, he plated the seed of the 2009 crisis.
This is a valid criticism.
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