prepended on 17 April 2013: Either the analysis contained within this article is fundamentally flawed or circumstances have changed since the occurrence of the events upon which this article is based. In 2013. For all its ongoing formal adherence to a fundamentalist Islamist doctrine, Iran has acted to defend its part of the world, including the secular government of Syria, which protects its Christian minority, against terrorists who uphold a fundamentalist Islamist doctrine which bears superficial resemblance to that of Iran.
Whatever, for all that has been helpfully analysed and understood in the past, with the socialist/Marxist methodology, upon which this article was structured, the dynamic of the developments since the Iranian revolution of 1979 seem inexplicable when that methodology is used. Just possibly other factors, including the spread of the Internet has helped to change the dynamic of world history.
What is not widely known is the role of supposedly Trotskyist left wing parties in propping up the rule of the Mullahs in 1980. Whether this was decisive I cannot say, but in 1980, one of the major Trotskyist Parties, affiliated with the Trotskyist Fourth International, made a surprising turn and, instead of being a left-wing opponent of the government and the mullahs, began to whitewash the mullahs and to smear political opponents of that government, including feminists and left-wing University students at the University of Tehran.
This article started out as a comment in reply to the comment entitled "Stoning of Women in Iran."
This article argues that you could probably get away with some nasty cartoons in a truly free press because such a press would freely report all sides to a dispute and not leave whole regions and classes of people with no expression in an international argument mediatized by the very same bunch of pillaging and plundering power elites, corporate and government, who profit from their silence. The article also wonders (but does not profess to know) whether the cold blooded assassinations at Charlie Hebdo were really an act of Islamic terrorism, or another false flag, on the principle of cui bono.
Speakers are Susan Day Dirgham, on “Valuing Secularism in Syria” and Fr Bruce Duncan, on “Peacemaking in Islamic traditions”. This is a Social Policy Connections Public Forum at The Study Centre, Yarra Theological Union. Best entry via 34 Bedford Street, Box Hill. The forum will go from 7:30pm - 9pm, Thursday 6 November.
Perry Cornish writes about a recent book by an Afghan-born New Yorker who felt there had to be more to history than the Western version. The book explores the theory of protestantism as an enabling force of the Enlightenment because it released Christians from the supervision of Church authorities.
(This article also looks at related population, immigration and democracy issues in the West.) A film, Innocence of Muslims has been released of which parts available on you-tube portray the founder of Islam in a bad personal and political light, to say the least. A strong theme depicts Muslims as aggressively anti-Christian. Apparently largely as a response to this film, there have been widespread riots by Muslims against foreign embassies, particularly US embassies, including riots in Sydney on 15 September 2012, with police injured. Meanwhile warships from more than 25 countries, including the United States, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are together launching a military exercise in the Straits of Hormuz, in response to threats to close it off. There is plenty of reason for Muslims to be angry with and frightened by the West apart from that film. And maybe Westerners should hold their own governments to greater account if we are to avoid World War Three.
The islamist Libyan 'rebels', 
Here is a very topical, historical account by E.J. Hobsbawm of the rise of Islam in the so-called undeveloped world which occurred in reaction to the disruption caused by economic liberalism and colonialism. People who are curious to understand why there is still apparent opposition between Western “democracy” and capitalism and Islam, might find it interesting.
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