Dr. Saeid Golkar will host a lecture on Iran on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Derthick Hall Room 201, from 12-1:30 p.m. Photo by Angela Foster.
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga UC Foundation Associate Professor Saeid Golkar will host a lecture titled “Protest, Repression and Human Rights in Iran: What the Current Uprisings Reveal About the Regime’s Future” on Wednesday, Feb. 25, at Derthick Hall Room 201, from 12-1:30 p.m.
Dr. Chris Horne, Dalton Roberts Professor of Public Opinion and head of the UTC Department of Political Science and Public Service, described Golkar as a “world-renowned expert on Middle East politics.”
“He’s also very personally invested, being from Iran,” Horne said. “Having someone who has the content expertise but also is really good at teaching is ideal for explaining a complex situation.”
Golkar is a senior advisor for United Against Nuclear Iran and a non-resident senior fellow on Middle East policy at the Chicago Council of Global Affairs. He has been recently quoted in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal and Newsweek.
As an Iranian-American, he aims to explain the importance of the current political climate of Iran in the wake of the recent protests on Jan. 8-9, which left approximately 35,000 dead.
“It’s important for us as Americans because right now there is a massive military buildup around Iran and the possibility of war is imminent,” Golkar said. “We have to understand why this military buildup is there in the backdrop of the protest happening in Iran.”
Golkar plans to put the protest in context, starting with the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
“1979 is a year that changed the world as we know it, not only for the Iranians or the people in the Middle East,” he said. “Generally speaking, it was the biggest geopolitical change at the end of the 20th century. Iran was a close ally of the United States and one of the pillars of Middle East stability.
“The Islamic Republic emerged from the Iranian revolt against the monarchy and created an Islamic government. From 1979, Iran became the enemy of the United States.”
Since the revolution, protests against the new regime have become common, Golkar said.
“This protest is not isolated from the Iranian revolt in 2022—the Women, Life, Freedom movement,” he explained. “This is the biggest wave of the protests we have seen in Iran in modern history.
“Millions of people came to the street and it was brutal, the most brutal political repression we’ve seen in the modern history of Iran. Some people believe in the 20th century around the world. In two days, the Islamic Republic killed more than 35,000 Iranians.”
As a global community, he said it’s important for the UTC campus to understand the persecution Iranians are living through and the impact of a potential nuclear threat.
“As a human, as a student, who is trying to learn about what is happening and as an American from every perspective that you look, this is an important issue to think about,” Golkar said.
He hopes to put these protests in context by examining the regime’s past, present and future.
“We are going to talk about what is happening and put it in a bigger context,” Golkar said. “This is not one isolated issue. This is an ongoing situation. We are going to talk about the human rights situation and the responsibility to protect.
“After the genocide in Rwanda, the United Nations signed a treaty called the Responsibility to Protect, or R2P, which states that other people have the responsibility to protect human rights and prevent massacres and crimes against humanity in other countries. As a human, we have this responsibility.”
Horne explained that this event is an opportunity for people to learn from an expert on a complex topic.
“I need to go as much as anyone else,” Horne said. “I find Middle East politics are really difficult to understand and constantly shifting. So, as someone who is concerned about issues like international peace and someone who values democratic governance, I want to better understand what’s happening at this kind of hotspot.”
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