Iranian-American Journalist and Author Hooman Majd will deliver a speech covering the Iranian election at City College from 2:30 to 4 p.m., Thurs, Oct. 10, in the Administration Building Room 211.
The author of the non-fiction works, “Ayatollah Begs to Differ: The Paradox of Modern Iran” and “Ayatollah’s Democracy: An Iranian Challenge” will deliver his perspective with the recent 2013 election. Afterward, the floor will open up for Q&A session.
The journalist has been published in a variety of newspapers and magazines including the New Yorker, the New York Times, GQ, New York Observer, Huffington Post, Interview Magazine, and Salon.com.
The prime focus of Majd’s work are the problems concerning his home country, Iran, even though he lived most of his life in the United States after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
Majd worked for the controversial former two-term president of Iran, Mahmaud Ahmadinejad, as a translator and making appearances in the United States. Ahmadinejad aimed his second presidential term at developing the nuclear program of Iran under the impression of creating peace.
The election was held June 14, 2013, with a victory for the new president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani. The voters greatly favored Rouhani with a landslide victory holding over 50 percent of the votes. Rouhani was sworn into office Aug. 2, and is now the president of Iran.
“Moderation and Wisdom” was the political slogan that Rouhani used to describe his motive as an elected leader of Iran. The plan set forth is to focus priorities on the economy, not nuclear developments.
“Majd worked at Island Records as an executive and has tied into American pop culture and gives [him] an edge into understand how the American public speaks,” said Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar, director of Middle East Studies.
Majd was the first to point to more subtle issues regarding the Iranian standpoint.
Eskandari-Qajar mentioned, “Iran has been painted black and white by the world, and the gray area is where Majd shows the world a different perspective.”
