Takeover in Tehran

By (author): Massoumeh Ebtekar

With: Fred A. Reed

In this first-ever insider account of the American Embassy takeover in 1979, Massoumeh Ebtekar sets out to correct 20 years of misrepresentation by the Western media of what the aims of the Iranian students and the populist revolution they personified were, and have since remained.

She also explains, in considerable detail, how one faction of the Shi’a clerical establishment came to see (with the eager complicity of the international media and its own pro-Western political agenda) these students as a vanguard of its own theocratic goals, rather than of the much broader cultural upheaval which had ousted the regime of Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlevi, installed through a United States-sponsored coup in 1953.

In February 2000, a month before U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s admission of active CIA involvement in the 1953 coup, Iranians flocked to the polls to elect the Islamic Republic’s sixth parliament: To date, 70% of the candidates elected have been characterized by the Western media as moderates,” among them, like Ebtekar, the students who took over the American Embassy in 1979. These moderates, followers of President Mohammad Khatamihimself a Shi’a clergymanare now attempting to break the stranglehold the conservative religious faction have on Iranian politics since 1979, and to establish a civil society within an Islamic framework.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the rapidly proliferating international phenomenon of peoples attempting to preserve their independence and culture from the overwhelming hegemony of the United States in the community of nations, and in how the independent” American media continues to play an active role as an instrument of American foreign policy.

AUTHOR

Fred A. Reed

A three-time winner of the Governor General’s Award for translation, and shortlisted for his 2009 translation of Thierry Hentsch’s Le temps aboli (Empire of Desire), Fred A. Reed has translated works by many of Quebec’s leading authors, several in collaboration with novelist David Homel, as well as works by Nikos Kazantzakis and other modern Greek writers. His most recent work, with David Homel, includes Philippe Arsenault’s Zora and Martine Desjardins’ The Green Chamber. Baraka Books will publish his translation, from Modern Greek, of Yannis Tsirbas’ Vic City Express in September. His latest book is Then We Were One: Fragments of Two Lives, an autobiographical essay, published in French by Fides Éditeur.


AUTHOR

Massoumeh Ebtekar

Masoumeh Ebtekar is an Iranian scientist and politician. Ebtekar first achieved fame as the spokeswoman of the students who had occupied the US Embassy in 1979. Later she became the first female Vice President of Iran, the head of the Environment Protection Organization of Iran during the administration of President Mohammad Khatami, and is currently a city councilwoman elect of Tehran. She is a founding member of the Iranian reformist political party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front. She wrote an account of the embassy takeover with Fred A. Reed entitled Takeover in Tehran: The Inside Story of the 1979 U.S. Embassy Capture, which is available from Talonbooks.

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In this first-ever insider account of the American Embassy takeover in 1979, Massoumeh Ebtekar sets out to correct 20 years of misrepresentation by the Western media of what the aims of the Iranian students and the populist revolution they personified were, and have since remained.

She also explains, in considerable detail, how one faction of the Shi’a clerical establishment came to see (with the eager complicity of the international media and its own pro-Western political agenda) these students as a vanguard of its own theocratic goals, rather than of the much broader cultural upheaval which had ousted the regime of Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlevi, installed through a United States-sponsored coup in 1953.

In February 2000, a month before U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s admission of active CIA involvement in the 1953 coup, Iranians flocked to the polls to elect the Islamic Republic’s sixth parliament: To date, 70% of the candidates elected have been characterized by the Western media as moderates,” among them, like Ebtekar, the students who took over the American Embassy in 1979. These moderates, followers of President Mohammad Khatamihimself a Shi’a clergymanare now attempting to break the stranglehold the conservative religious faction have on Iranian politics since 1979, and to establish a civil society within an Islamic framework.

This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the rapidly proliferating international phenomenon of peoples attempting to preserve their independence and culture from the overwhelming hegemony of the United States in the community of nations, and in how the independent” American media continues to play an active role as an instrument of American foreign policy.

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Details

Dimensions:

244 Pages
9in * 229mm * 6in * 152mm * 0.75in19mm
386gr
13.625oz

Published:

January 01, 2000

City of Publication:

Vancouver

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Talonbooks

ISBN:

9780889224438

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Book Subjects:

HISTORY / Middle East / General

Featured In:

All Books

Language:

eng

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