Academic Book Review: Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic

The very recent events taking place in Iran demonstrated how rare are the adequate interpretations of this complex society and political regime. How can someone from outside understand in the same narrative the massive street manifestations mourning Qasem Soleimani and the student protests against the regime following the unintentional shooting of an Ukrainian passager plane killing 176 people on board, most of them brilliant young people?

At a certain extent, democracy makes us lazy. In dictatorships, people learn the hard way of fencing with the restrictions and building their oasis of relatively free thinking. Dictatorships, regardless their breed are not made of homogenous chunks but of individuals that despite the high political pressure, they have their own interests and ideas, including sometimes contrary to the accepted school of thought.

Narges Bajoghli's Iran Reframed: Anxieties of Power in the Islamic Republic studies the ways in which authorities are trying to reach the younger generation though media - particularly film - productions. The main question those productions should answer is 'How to transmit the commitment to the revolutionary project from one generation to another?' 

It mainly explores the 'media world' of the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, an important paramilitary force active in schools, universities and other institutions. The messages are spread through a plethora of foundations, schools and institutions, as well as formats (tv series, documentaries, films). 

However, it does not mean that the success is overwhelming. Sometimes, people involved in producing the narrative do have unique perspectives, some of them - especially veterans of the Iran/Iraq war - may have their own disappointments. Sometimes, the distribution channels of such messages doesn't go smoothly. Often, the target of those messages does not react as expected. 

There are also specific differences between defending the regime (nezam) and criticism of the government (dowlat), between the insider (khodi) and the outsider (gheyr-e khodi). Identifying and understanding those differences are very important in having a better view of different angles and ideological movements within the Islamic Republic.

The author, Iranian-American, based the book on interviews with representatives of the ideological production, plus an extensive knowledge of those productions. Besides offering a different way for interpretation of the Iranian realities, it shares interesting information about the Iranian movie industry, whose development is at least partially due to the massive state interest in ideological production.

My biggest regret though is that the book is too short, as for me it ended in the middle of a very interesting discussion that I was expected to continue at least for more than 200 pages. 

Academic Book Review: Marriage and Fatherhood in the Nazi SS, by Amy Carney

Based on unique documents from the archives of the SS, Amy Carney succeeded to create a comperehensive overview of the lineage families within the Nazi elites, mostly focused on controlled parenting and a complex genetical selection for professional assignments. After 1933, 'only a person who descended from a superior racial lineage would have the hereditary credentials to join the SS', part of the larger race-based policy developed at different levels of the German society.

It profiled not only the SS as a racial elite - with the genetic lineage the main element evaluating the worth of a person and his or her place within the hierarchy - but created the model for the entire German 'Volk' as well. 'Himmler tasked each SS man with the responsibility of fathering a racially healthy family; the duty was repeatedly emphasized in commands, rhetorics, and policy'. With a clear distinction of the roles within the family and the mission to provide to the society at least to two children per family, with the corresponding financial state-supported measures, those elites were already in place at the end of the war and the model survived at certain extent in the post-war Germany. 

Carney is mostly focused on the analytical overview of the policies during the Nazi times, with an explanatory approach which doesn't leave too much space for a critical and comparative approach on the sources. Given the novelty and extent of the information, which will extensively influence the content of similar approaches regarding the elites during that those times, the study is mostly self-contained and explores the material. There will be the duty of further academic studies to diversify the approach and create the theoretical models and support theories in this respect.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review   

The Internet! It's a Trap!

Indeed, the Internet can be a trap, especially when it comes to people that were born in the 2.0 years, without a prior knowledge of how the world used to look like when Google was just an utopic nightmare. As a journalist and academic in the training, I remember the good old days when I had to go to the library to read books early in the morning for preparing the background of an article. Or, when I had to use my paper files for checking facts and figures about a specific topic.

My life today is much easier and writing an article takes significantly less time, but on the other other hand, without a prior mental preparation about what really counts and what are the most reliable sources of information. I remember the horrific reaction of an academic friend of mine fighting to convince his students that Wikipedia is NEVER a source of academic reference for an academic paper or article. And the examples can continue.

Ashesh Mukherjee is using an academic tone and analysis for listing the most important challenges of our everyday life and development represented by the Internet perspective. What I highly appreciated was the balanced style and analytic skills, after having the misfortune of dealing with way too many academic books in German by German authors where the Internet was ostracized and considered an obvious casus belli for many society and educational ills. 

In reality, the online life might be a cause of distress and existential problems, but especially when most of the problems are already there. For instance, if someone already suffer of a serious mental disability he or she will rather suffer when using Internet unguided for doing, for example, unlimited online shopping. There are many people who instead of going to a reliable source of authority of information, are using an informal mediums because they have their own fears and obsessions in relation with thouse sources. And the examples can continue.

The Internet Trap is a reliable source of information for anyone looking to better understand the impact of 2.0 in our everyday life, without panic and hysterical approaches, but through an analytic and realistic approach. A recommended read to any academic researcher in contemporary issues and, especially, online realms.

Rating: 4 stars

Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for an honest review