Re: Iran before Ahmadinejad (was capital punishment in Iran)
On May 5, 2007, at 1:58 PM, ravi wrote:
Even if that’s what Yoshie is suggesting, it’s not disingenuous: “third world” nationalism is indeed preferable over colonialist (etc) nationalism because of the same reason that affirmative action (not a principle but a tactic) for black people is preferable to affirmative action for white people.
I’d certainly agree that the nationalism of the powerful is a lot
different from the nationalism of the powerless; one is an ideology
of domination, the other one of possible liberation. But you really
have to acknowledge some horrible crap that has occurred under the
sign of revolutionary or anti-imperialist nationalism - many awful
regimes in Latin America and Africa. It’s embarrassing and painful to
see such uncritical celebrations of the anti-imperialism of Islamism
when the regimes and parties involved are often right in that
tradition of awfulness.
Doug