> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
>>Fidel, you ought to have that talk
>>with Ahmadinejad ASAP and bring the man to senses!
>
> Is there any evidence that Ahmadinejad has socialist/internationalist
> leanings?
>
> Doug
Better question: is there any evidence that Fidel is an lbo-talk subscriber?
Joel Schalit: (On Doug's question)
A
> former classmate of mine in grad school was a student of the Iranian
> revolution, spoke Farsi fluently, and was of the opinion that first
> generation Iran revolutionaries were very well schooled in Gramsci, Fanon
> and Marcuse.
I don't know as much about the history here (gleaned mostly from a few articles and Iranian movies [cf: Milani's "Two Women"] about the period and the keen graphic novel "Persepolis"), but my understanding was that, though there were certainly Marxist roots to the various revolutionary movements at the time, the religious movement that became dominant basically hijacked that revolution and, in the end, most of the leftists were killed, imprisoned, exiled or "re-educated". If the mullahs took on this interpretation, it was because it was popular, not because of a leftist allegiance. In any case, it doesn't seem like evidence of a contemporary ideological alignment. On the other hand, I seem to recall that Ahmadinejad has been in close contact with Chavez (or vice versa). If so, this is probably a strategic alliance based on a mutual enemy rather than a deep ideological or theoretical alliance.
-s