Hooman MajdPolitical Analyst & Iran Expert

Hooman Majd Considers The Paradox Of Modern Iran | Big Think

Name: Hooman Majd Considers The Paradox Of Modern Iran | Big Think
Uploaded: 2012-04-24T01:32:36+00:00
Duration: 2 min 22 s
Channel: Hooman Majd
Description: In this monologue, journalist Hooman Majd explains the reasoning behind his book title The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and uses it to illustrate the central…

24 Apr 2012 · 2 min

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2:22

In this monologue, journalist Hooman Majd explains the reasoning behind his book title The Ayatollah Begs to Differ and uses it to illustrate the central paradox of contemporary Iran. He argues that Iran is not a monolithic, dictatorial theocracy; rather, its political system is a complex blend of authoritarian structures and contested power, exemplified by debates over the president’s real authority. Majd emphasizes that everyday life in Iran is riddled with contradictions, most strikingly the coexistence of strong religious identity with a largely secular public sphere. He points to the absence of audible calls to prayer and the fact that Iranians continue their business at prayer times as concrete evidence that, despite its Islamic Republic label, Iran operates in many secular ways. He also notes that American perceptions of Iran are shaped by mystery and limited contact, leading to exaggerated expectations of uniform religiosity.

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I titled my book The Ayatollah Begs to Differ. The subtitle was something that came up in, you know, as a kind of marketing tool. Publishers like subtitles. I think The Ayatollah Begs to Differ itself was a paradoxical title to some people, and the reason I chose that title was because I was trying to get across the fact that Iran is not this monolithic system where, you know, there's a dictatorship and, you know, all the clerics agree and they kind of run the country in a dictatorial way. They may be authoritarian, but they're not dictators. And the paradox, I think, is the paradox of modern Iran is that the almost everything you think of Iran, there's another side to Iran that we don't know. For almost anything you can mention, you know, in terms of the politics, just purely on the political level, you know, what we were talking about earlier, the system for electing a president, whether people believe a president has got all the power he should have or maybe he doesn't have the power, the paradoxes that we Everyday life in Iran is full of paradoxes anyway, as it, you know, and there are paradoxes in every society, it's not just Iran. But Iran perhaps more so because this is unknown mysterious place that Americans don't really have a lot of contact with. But I mean, I couldn't put my finger on the one biggest paradox, but I think perhaps for Americans the biggest paradox would be is that, you know, for all its religious fervor that exists in Iran, it's also an incredibly secular country in many ways. I mean, I'll give you one example. You know, you could be in a cab in New York City and if it's prayer time, if it's 12 noon, your cab driver might pull off to the side of the street and, you know, take out his prayer rug and pray right on time. And that's in New York City where we have a lot of Muslim cab drivers. In Tehran, there's no call to prayer. People go about their business. They're just like, you know, you're driving around the city at noon. This is an Islamic Republic that is avowedly Islamic. There's no audible call to prayer. People don't stop their business and rush out and pull out their prayer mats and pray.