The Iranian regime appears more stable than ever, despite broad protest movements such as “woman, life, freedom” and Israel and US’s war, which killed the country’s supreme leader earlier this year. How is this possible?
The most effective weapon of the Iranian regime is neither missiles nor nuclear weapons, but rather how they have quietly created discord within the diverse Iranian diaspora and the global political movements of which they are part. This is according to Dr. Pardis Shafafi, British-Iranian anthropologist connected to the French research center EHESS, whose research focuses on state violence and political repression in Iran.
The violence of the regime is not only carried out in the country’s prisons and gallows, but affects the minds of everybody, to the extent that Iranians are unable to imagine liberation without turning to the regime’s own tools, Shafafi argues. How can we resist attacks on our collective imagination by trolls and algorithms? And what can we learn from the Persians about the role of community in achieving real sociopolitical change?
In this lecture, Shafafi will look at how Iranian state violence has evolved over the years, from the "public secrecy" of the 1980s to what she considers a naked, performative necropolitics from 2022 onwards. She will give us her perspective on how to understand the situation in Iran today, and why the many protests against the regime have not led to real change.
The lecture will be in English.
The event is in collaboration with Masahat festival, and supported by NORAD.
