A direct legacy of Mossadegh--Forefather of the Nonaligned Movement:
Neither East / Nor West
(na sharghi, na gharbi)
On top of the entrance door to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
(so-called) "Islamic" Republic of Iran, in Tehran
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Recent example of sabotaging non-alignment
BBC, Persian (Jan 21, 2026)
Following an emergency meeting of the Security Council about Iran, the U.S. Ambassador at the UN criticized South Africa for inviting Iran's naval forces to participate in the BRICS' military exercise (held off the coast of South Africa at Cape Town) while the Iranian government was violently suppressing protesters, [U.S.] saying that South Africa's cooperation with Iran was not in accordance to [the principles of] "non-alignment" but rather a "choice to stand by the Iranian regime."
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Mossadegh's Central Nonviolent Legacy: Neither East / Nor West
"Internal despotism [of the Shah] and external colonialism [UK / US /Israel] are two sides of the same coin" -- i.e., they are mutually co-dependent, whether as "friends" or as "enemies" (structurally unequal by definition); so we should nonviolently resist both of "internal repression and external aggression" because they are interdependent, and thus they perpetuate conflicts--e.g., as Smedley Butler put it: "War is a [systemically engineered] racket."
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Ideological Populism (us, as "good" vs them, as "evil enemy")
vs
Democratic Populism (we are interconnected)
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Ideological Populism >>> "Make...great again"
Democratic Populism >>> Make mother Earth great again.
