Bahman Nirumand

Bahman Nirumand
Born September 18, 1936
Tehran, Iran
Nationality Iranian and German
Occupation Scholar and Journalist

Bahman Nirumand (18 September 1936 in Tehran) is an Iranian and German journalist and author.

Life

Bahman Nirumand was born on 18 September 1936 to a wealthy family of civil servants in Tehran, Iran. His uncle was a consul in the Iranian embassy in Berlin before the World War II. When he was 14 years old, Nirumand was sent to Germany to go to the gymnasium, and attended Rudolf Steiner School.

After his primary and secondary schooling, he studied German, philosophy and Iranian at the Universities of Munich, the Tübingen, and Berlin. He became a dozent ın 1960 at the University of Tübingen with the subject Probleme der Verpflanzung des europäischen Dramas in die neupersische Literatur ("Problems of transplanting European dramas to the Neopersian literature"). After finishing his studies, he returned to Iran and worked there as a dozent for comparative literature at the University of Tehran, and as a writer and journalist. Together with Mehdi Khanbaba Tehrani and Majid Zarbakhsh, he founded the "Goruhe Kadreh" (Kader group), which understood itself as a Marxist-Leninist organisation and wanted to organize revolutionary cells for the anti-imperialist war in urban areas of Iran by acting as urban guerillas.[1] In 1965, he returned to Germany to escape a purported imminent arrest.

His book Persien, Modell eines Entwicklungslandes oder Die Diktatur der Freien Welt ("Persia, a model of a developing nation or the dictatorship of the Free World") was published in January 1967 (translated as Iran, The New Imperialism in Action) had a large influence upon the internationalism of the May 1986 student uprising. [note 1] Nirumand became a member of the Confederation of Iranian students. On a lecture tour for his book in Hamburg, he was invited by Freimut Duve and became acquainted with Ulrike Meinhof. They talked about the circumstances in Iran. Upon this, Ulrike Meinhof wrote ın June 1967 for the official visit of shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the Federal Republic of Germany through an open letter to his wife Farah Diba.[2] In this letter, Meinhof alleged among others that for the peasants of Mehdiabad, a "Persian meal" consists of straw put in water.[3] In October 1967, Der Spiegel published a critical review of Nirumand's book, alleging that much of the information it contained was dubious or wrong.[4] In 1979, Nirumand returned to Iran before the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded. After staying there for three years, Nirumand went into exile in Paris, as he had not received permission to enter Germany. He later relocated to Berlin.

By his own admission, Nirumand advocates for freedom in Iran. He holds that the forces around Ahmadinejad are sustained through terror and threats from the West, including the threats of sanctions and war. He believes that such actions serve to bolster the regime and that popular support for the regime is much weaker than is assumed ın the West. He contends that artists, women, and the youth are not radicals and desire freedom. Nirumand argues that the image of Iran in the West has been reduced to that of only the Islamic regime itself.

Nirumand is author of several books and articles – among others:

In addition to that, he authors numerous contributions that have been broadcast. He published, among others:

In addition, he has translated literature from Persian into German, among others:

Since 2001, he is the composer of the monthly “Iran Reports” of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

Bahman Nirumand is the father of the journalist Mariam Lau, who is currently working as the political correspondent of the weekly journal Die Zeit.

Works

As an author

As a publisher

As a translator (a choice of)

Notes

  1. On the influence of Nirumand's work on the West German New Left, see Quinn Slobodian, Foreign Front: Third World Politics in Sixties West Germany Duke University Press, chapter 5

References

  1. http://www.manoochehryazdi.blogfa.com/cat-9.aspx[]
  2. "Revolutionäre Romantik" | Cicero Online
  3. Ulrike Marie Meinhof Offner Brief an Fra Dibah
  4. Der Spiegel, 46197096, Title=GEWALT AUF DEM CAMPUS


External links

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