Mehemmed Azadgar – November 2, 2024
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| Dr. Reza Baraheni |
My dear friend Asad Seif asked me some time ago to write an article about Reza Barahani for Avaye Taba'id (Voice of Exile). Naturally, I agreed. But what to write and how to write it in a way that wouldn’t be repetitive, deeply occupied my mind. I considered various ideas and ultimately arrived at what you see here. The reader of this note may have encountered one or two small parts of this writing in my other works.
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| Mehemmed Azadgar |
Mohammad Azadgar, the head of the executive board of the Azerbaijan Federal Democratic Movement (AFDH), spoke with Voice of America about the future of Iran, relations with ethnic communities living in Iran, and internal conflicts occurring in the region. He discussed his organization's policies, the recent statement titled "For a Democratic Iran!" and the AFDH's decision to withdraw from the Congress of Nationalities for a Federal Iran.
Mehemmed Azadgar - August 3, 2010
Before the 1979 Revolution in Iran, a small book titled The Colonizer and the Colonized written by Albert Memmi, a Tunisian author, was published in translation by Homa Nategh. Of course, considering Ms. Nategh's positions and views on the national question in Iran, her interpretation of Memmi's writings is entirely different from ours. She translated this book from an anti-"Westoxification" and "Iranian nationalism" perspective, perhaps even influenced by the views of Jalal Al-e-Ahmad. Ms. Homa Nateq translated this book in memory of Jalal.
At the time of its publication, this book sparked discussions among circles of non-Persian intellectuals, particularly Azerbaijanis, about colonialism and whether it was possible to label Azerbaijanis as colonized and the central government as a colonial power. Earlier, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, under the influence of Gholam Hossein Saedi and Reza Baraheni, who were his close and intimate friends, had said that "Azerbaijan is a cultural colony of the central government."
In our rereading of Memmi’s book, we will see that Azerbaijan is in every sense a colony.