Women’s March

An Islamophile intervention against women’s rights

Women’s March

 March 8, 2018  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

“WE CAN DISAGREE AND STILL LOVE EACH OTHER, unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist,” Linda Sarsour proudly announces on her Twitter account.1 Sarsour is a self-proclaimed human rights activist and supporter of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. She and her Women’s March (WM) colleagues were named Women of The Year 2017 by Glamour magazine.2 However, for Sarsour, Trump’s so-called “white supremacy” seems to be the only phenomenon deserving of the term “oppression. [Read More]
feminism  women's march  islam  anti-semitism  palestine  israel  islamism  iran  anti-deutsch 

A reply to Stephan Grigat

On anti-Semitism and the Left on Iran

 December 1, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THERE ARE SECTIONS of the international left that support Iran’s Islamic regime, want to ban any criticism of its dictatorial practices, and condemn calls for its revolutionary overthrow because it is currently threatened by the U.S. and its allies. It is entirely legitimate to be sharply critical of this approach and to ask: What has created this bizarre allegiance of sections of the antiwar left with some of the most unsavory Islamic governments and political forces in the Middle East and beyond? [Read More]
PR Iran  Iran  Anti-semitism  Stephan Grigat 

To know the worst

Anti-Semitism and the failure of the Left on Iran

To know the worst

 September 1, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

DESPITE THE CREATION OF AN AUTOCRATIC and anti-Semitic regime after the Khomeneiite revolution of 1979, the European Community and later the European Union continued to deal with the Islamic Republic of Iran; and even with new, insufficient sanctions in place, trade with Iran continues until today. It is the capitalist state’s primary task to allow the further realization of capital, but there is a certain sense in which politics surpasses this function. [Read More]
Anti-Deutsche  Anti-semitism  Iran  PR Iran  Islamism  Israel  Israel-Palestine Conflict  Khomeni  Middle East  Zionism 

Arab Spring into Winter?

Challenges to the Left One Year On

 March 17, 2012  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Video Recording Panelists Siyaves Azeri is the spokesperson of the Committee of International Relations of the Worker-communist Party of Iran. He is also a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston Canada. Azeri has taught as an assistant professor at Koc University in Istanbul; he has also taught at University of Ottawa and as a guest lecturer at Istanbul Technical University. Maria Rohaly is a coordinator for Mission Free Iran, an international organization that emerged during the 2009 uprising in Iran to amplify the demands and struggle for the goals and objectives of the revolution: freedom, equality, and humane society. [Read More]
Left Forum  Left Forum 2012  Arab Spring  Egypt  International left  Iran  Syria  Tunisia 

Egypt, or, history's invidious comparisons

1979, 1789, and 1848

Egypt, or, history's invidious comparisons

 March 1, 2011  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

THE UPRISING IN EGYPT, which followed soon after the toppling of the old regime in Tunisia, succeeded in bringing down Hosni Mubarak on February 11, the 32nd anniversary to the day of the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. Already, before this timely coincidence, comparisons between the Iranian Revolution and the revolts gripping the Arab world had started to be made. But other historical similarities offered themselves: the various “color revolutions” in Eastern Europe and former Soviet Central Asian states and Lebanon in recent years, and the collapse of Communism in the Soviet bloc and beyond (the former Yugoslavia) starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. [Read More]
1789  1848  1917  Bonapartism  Egypt  Hosni Mubarak  Iran  Islamic Republic  Karl Marx  Marxism  Revolution  Walter Benjamin 

Lessons from the election

Lessons from the election

 December 1, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

IN A STRANGE WAY, the debate over whether the American left should support the Green Movement in Iran resembles the arguments that took place in progressive circles before the 2008 presidential elections in the United States, and that reemerged in the recent midterm elections. Those in the Obama camp either believed him to be their savior, taking his every word as gospel, or, if they had a more sober political outlook, simply resorted to some version of the tired “lesser of two evils” argument. [Read More]
Election  Green Movement  Iran  Mir-Hossein Mousavi  Barack Obama 

Forging a Left in Iran

Possibilities and difficulties

 April 25, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Recording of a teach-in on labor, human rights and prospects for a Left in Iran with Ervand Abrahamian, on May 2nd, 2010, in New York City. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Description The Platypus Affiliated Society, in collaboration with United for Iran, Amnesty International and the Network of Iranian Unions (NILU) has organized a teach-in on Iran for May 2nd, from 1-5pm at the Tisch Hall, 40 W. [Read More]
Green Movement  ideology  Iran  NYC  Praxis  Public forum  Teach-in  Waging Nonviolence 

The Green Movement and the Left

Prospects for Democracy in Iran

 March 20, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Platypus panel held at Left Forum 2010 in New York City, Pace University, March 20, 2010. Audio Recording Your browser does not support the audio element Panelists Laura Lee Schmidt (Chair)—Platypus Affiliated Society; History, Theory, and Criticism of Art and Architecture, MIT Siyaves Azeri—Worker-Communist Party of Iran Hamid Dabashi—Columbia University Christopher Cutrone—Platypus Affiliated Society; University of Chicago Description Rather than asking what the Left thinks of Iran, this panel will pose the question, what does Iran reveal about the Left, its limitations and failures? [Read More]
Left Forum 2010  Green Movement  Iran  Leftism  Worker-Communist Party of Iran 

30 years of the Islamic Revolution in Iran

 February 18, 2010  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society

Given the recent election crisis and continuing protests in Iran and in light of the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, The Platypus Affiliated Society on November 5, 2009 hosted a panel discussion at the University of Chicago entitled 30 Years of the Islamic Revolution: The Tragedy of the Left. Panel participants included Danny Postel, journalist and author of Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran: Iran and the Future of Liberalism; Kaveh Ehsani, editor of The Middle East Report (MERIP); Maziar Behrooz, historian and author of Rebels with a Cause: The Failure of the Left in Iran; and Chris Cutrone of Platypus. [Read More]
Iran  Islam  Iranian Revolution 

2001

The Decline of the Left in the 20th Century: Toward a Theory of Historical Regression

2001

 November 18, 2009  |  The Platypus Affiliated Society  • Other languages: Ελληνικά, Deutsch

ON APRIL 18, 2009, the Platypus Affiliated Society conducted the following panel discussion at the Left Forum Conference at Pace University in New York City. The panel was organized around four significant moments in the progressive separation of theory and practice over the course of the 20th century: 2001 (Spencer A. Leonard), 1968 (Atiya Khan), 1933 (Richard Rubin), and 1917 (Chris Cutrone). The following is an edited transcript of the 2001 presentation by Spencer A. [Read More]
Afghanistan  Fred Halliday  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel  Iran  Iranian Revolution  Michel Foucault  Moishe Postone  New Left  Stalinism  Left Forum  Theodor W. Adorno