Editor’s Page

Ladan Boroumand reviews Danny Postel’s Reading Legitimation Crisis in Tehran.
Inspired by Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran, Postel reveals the fructifying
relationship that has been forged between the classic texts of liberal democracy and
democratic resistance to the Mullahs. Postel points out that the western Left’s poor
record of solidarity with Iranian liberal democrats is a ‘serious blind spot,’ signalling
that ‘our solidarity with struggles around the world is determined by George Bush,
rather than by our principles.’ Ladan Boroumand astutely traces this blind spot to
the Iranian revolution itself. Since that event, she argues, ‘many Western intellectuals
and activists have applauded the defeat of the free individual of the social contract
and the resuscitation of a new (and post-communist) brand of selfless individual
who is attached to a sacred community through sacrificial bonds.’

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