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What led to the Shah’s downfall and the establishment of clerical rule in Iran? Talia Baroncelli speaks to historian Pouya Alimagham.

• Transcript

A transcript will be arriving shortly.

Lula da Silva was inaugurated for a third non-consecutive term as president of Brazil, dramatically reversing the country’s trajectory of the past eight years. In the first few days in office, Lula presented more progressive policy changes than many believed would be possible, says freelance journalist Michael Fox.

Here is a link to Lula’s full inauguration speech in English: https://www.brasilwire.com/lulas-inauguration-speech/

When Julian Assange was arrested, he was holding up a copy of Paul Jay’s book, “Gore Vidal’s History of the National Security State.” This mini-documentary is the original 2005 interview with Vidal, upon which the book is based. We republish it now as a way of protesting the persecution of Assange and the threat to what’s left of press freedom in the United States.

Talia Baroncelli interviews historian Pouya Alimagham about the historical context of the current Iranian uprising. 

• Transcript

Hi, I’m Talia Baroncelli, and you’re watching theAnalysis.news. I’ll shortly be joined by Pouya Alimagham to discuss the protests in Iran, as well as the history which led up to them. But first, please don’t forget to go to our website, theAnalysis.news, hit the donate button, and subscribe to our newsletter. I’ll be back in a bit.

I’m very excited to be joined by Pouya Alimagham. He’s a historian and a lecturer on the modern Middle East at MIT, and he’s also the author of the book Contesting the Iranian Revolution: The Green Uprisings. Thanks so much for joining me, Pouya.

It’s good to be here. Thank you.

So I wanted to ask you about the current protests. Right now, we’re about three months into the protest. It’s been three months since Mahsa Amini was killed by the morality police. Over 100s, or actually almost 500 people, have been killed now during the protests, and we’ve seen two people being executed. So I was wondering if you think the protests will continue to have momentum or if they’ll be driven underground.

It’s a good question. Momentum doesn’t necessarily have to be every day. We’ve seen the uprising. We’re actually in the 96th day of it. It has a lot of ebbs and flows. Every Friday is a big spike, especially in places like Zahedan, where they gather for Friday prayers, and then right afterward, they protest, especially the Baluchis, they protest.

The repression is real, though. When you have a disorganized movement, and when I say disorganized, I’m not trying to knock it. I’m not trying to say that it’s ineffective or there’s no organization, but organizations are really important to revolutions. They get people going, they set dates and times, and they present an alternative ideology to get everybody else on board with it. There are people setting dates and times and locations, but there are so many, it’s a bit disorganized. The real issue is that it’s really easy to say what you’re against, but they haven’t really presented, systematically, an alternative.

For that reason, the great majority of the population, however sympathetic they may be, many Iranians are a little bit weary of what could come about after the regime falls. So they may be sympathetic, and there may be a fence sitter...

In dieser Folge von The Source debattieren wir mit dem preisgekrönten Dokumentarfilmer, Journalisten und Chefredakteur von theAnalysis.news Paul Jay über den Krieg in der Ukraine.

To view the English version – https://theanalysis.news/debate-on-the-war-in-ukraine-with-an-award-winning-journalist-pt-1-2/

In part 2 of our conversation with award-winning documentary filmmaker and editor-in-chief of theAnalysis.news Paul Jay, we talk about the situation in Iran and why the U.S. is no longer seeking a nuclear agreement. We also talk about why the mainstream media is now coming out in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The interview was conducted by Zain Raza for acTVism Munich.

In this episode of The Source, we debate the war in Ukraine with award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and editor-in-chief of theAnalysis.news Paul Jay. The interview was conducted by Zain Raza for acTVism Munich.