Seyed Mohammad Marandi, a graduate of Birmingham University and associate professor of English Literature at University of Tehran, is the founder and director of Institute for North American and European Studies (INAES).[1] Marandi, born in 1966 in Richmond, Virginia, is the son of the former Iranian Health Care Minister and present Iranian Member of Parliament, Alireza Marandi,[2] and a solid supporter of the Islamic Republic and its leader, Seyed Ali Khamenei.[3] He is also a frequent interlocutor at international news networks such as CNN,[4] BBC,[5] Al Jazeera,[6] and Press TV, where he has frequently supported the policies of the Islamic Republic with regard to its nuclear program[7][8] and the pacification of the Iranian domestic demonstrations following the presidential elections of 2009.[9][10][11]
In an interview with Al Jazeera, he has accused the late Grand Ayatollah Hussein-Ali Montazeri (1922–2009), the dissident Iranian cleric and an advocate of human rights and separation of religion from state who was placed under house arrest virtually for life by the Islamic Republic, of being associated with the Mujahidin. According to Marandi: "After his [Montazeri's] inner circle was discovered to be linked to Mujahidin terrorists based in Iraq, he was isolated by the reformists.... He is not a major player and has always been very critical".[12]
Marandi's main focus of concern, however, has been the project INAES. This institute, starting as a subsidiary arm to the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature of University of Tehran just a few years ago, is now a full-fledged independent center essentially concerned with post-colonial studies with a particular concentration on the critique of Orientalism, as promoted by such figures as Edward Said, Ziauddin Sardar, and Bill Ashcroft.[13]
Marandi has entered arguments over the representations of the Islamic Republic in the Western media.[14] He has also made recurring onslaughts on the "Westernized" outlooks of the Iranian diaspora, especially as embodied in the bestseller Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003) by the Iranian-American writer, Azar Nafisi:
In this article, an attempt will be made to show that Reading Lolita in Tehran is a work of one who has 'Westernized' her outlook; Nafisi constantly confirms what orientalist representations have regularly claimed: the backwardness and inferiority of Muslims and Islam. This article will attempt to show that Nafisi has produced gross misrepresentations of Iranian society and Islam and that she uses quotes and references which are inaccurate, misleading, or even wholly invented.[15]
With regard to politics, in an article under the title Ayatollah Khamenei and a Principled Foreign Policy,[16] Marandi, despite the declarations of the people and parties involved to the contrary,[17][18][19] attributes the recent wave of liberation movements in the Middle East to the "culture of resistance advocated by Imam Khamenei":
In fact, many internal critics of Iran's foreign policy now believe that the country's posture of resistance has been vindicated. It is widely believed that this culture of resistance advocated by Imam Khamenei has contributed to the current uprisings and the changes that we are now witnessing. It is also believed that the same culture of resistance has made the Islamic Republic popular in the Arab world.
Similarly, with respect to the storming of the British embassy in Tehran on November 29, 2011, while there exist hints as to the direct role of the Islamic Republic in the incident,[20][21][22][23][24] Marandi stands for a genuinely popular protest against the sanctions placed on Iran by the British government.[25] However, later he modifies his initial position by saying that "Things did get out of hand".[26]
With regard to Marandi's practice, the Columbia University professor and political critic, Hamid Dabashi, has described him as a "native informer".[27]