No One Knows about Persian Cats

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Recommended: Impacts of globalization on culture

A movie No one knows about Persian cats ask us this question? I would change the title somewhat to ask “no one who knows about Persian people”. No one knows about Persian cats takes us into the underground music scene in Iran. Many in the western world and especially in the United States may look dumbfounded when you talk about an underground music scene in Iran. I believe the director Bahman Ghobadi’s movie about the underground music scene not only exposes the repression of the existing Iranian government on freedom of expression, but also shows a side of Iranian culture most would never have thought existed. I believe this movie upholds many truths about democracy and freedom of speech, but also exposes the demagoguery of many in the west who portray Iran as a united front of political Islam. Lastly, it also shows the fallacy of Samuel Huntington's the Clash of civilizations.

The movie No One Knows about Persian Cat’s centers around two musicians recently released from prison for performing music without permission. Negar and Ashkan are two musicians along with their promoter Nader trying to get a band together to go play music in Europe since they are not able to play in Iran. The movie has all the synergy of a Cold War spy novel with our protagonist stealthily walking into basements and padded rooms all over Tehran. Interspersed they meet a wide and varied group of people amazingly most of these people aren't singing songs about raging against the West. They are very much as American independent bands directing their music towards issues in their own life. I believe one part of the movie tends to dispel the notion that all people from the Middle East and Western Asia are hell-bent on destroying Western civilization. In Samu...

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...s as well as in many others (December, 2007). Instead of always confronting strife and war I believe the United States would do better to support various independent groups such as musicians, artists and scholars. This I believe in the long run would lead to a better world for those living in Iran today as well as for relations between the two countries and those of the Middle East.

Works Cited

Bahman Ghobadi , (2009). No One Knows About Persian Cats [DVD]

Bahman Ghobadi, (2004). Turtles Can Fly [DVD]

Green December, L. L. (2007). Comparative Politics of the Third World. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc.

Khalidi, R. (2009). Sowing Crisis. Boston: Beacon Press.

The globalization Reader Frank J. Lechner John Boli , Blackwell Publishing

Samuel P. Hunington “The Clash of Civilizations” Foreighn Affairs 72.3 Summer 1993 Council on foreign Relations , Inc

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