At the end of last year, I posted on some comments by the Iranian philosopher Ramin Jahanbegloo. Tragically, Dr Jahanbegloo’s optimism about the growing public sphere in the Middle East hasn’t been borne out in at least one specific instance - his arbitrary arrest by Iranian authorities. You can read about, and contribute to, the campaign to free him here and here.
Ramin Jahanbegloo was arrested at the Tehran airport on or around Friday 28 April 2006 as he was leaving for an international conference on Iran in Brussels. After several days silence, the Iranian authorities announced Jahanbegloo’s incarceration in the notorious Evin prison on 3 May 2006. Since then, posts on a weblog for Dr Jahanbegloo’s release set up by the Toronto Initiative for Iranian Studies quote official statements that he is undergoing “interrogation” and is suspected of crimes related to “security and spying”.
You can also read some of his work in Eurozine, in which he condemns the “clash of intolerances”:
While many Muslims acknowledge the support and sensitivity of most Westerners, some Muslims continue to embarrass everyone with the narrowness of their vision and the crudeness of their sentiments in relation to the West. The agenda seems to be the same on both sides: promoting a generalized conflict between the Islamic world and the West. But who has the greatest duty to stop this clash of intolerances committed in the name of Islam and western civilization? The answer, obviously, is Muslims and non-Muslims who are against superficial and apocalyptic depictions of a world divided. Any solution to contemporary clash of intolerances must take recourse to fighting the crazed nationalism, tribal hatred, and religious and ethnic intolerance and encouraging the opposing forces to adhere to values of moderation, tolerance and non-violence.
The article is very much worth reading.