Majid Rahnema

Majid Rahnema is diplomat and Iranian former minister . It represented Iran with UNO of 1957 with 1971. Economist, it works on the problems of the Pauvreté and with the production processs of the Misère by the market economy.

Biography

Majid Rahnema was born has Teheran in 1924. A long time ambassador, it represented Iran at the United Nations during twelve successive sessions, of 1957 with 1971. He was police chief of the United Nations in Rwanda and Burundi in 1959, for the elections and the referendum which led these countries to independence. He was also member of the Council of the university of the United Nations of 1974 to 1978, and also representative-resident of UNO in Mali.

Between 1967 and 1971, he is Minister for Sciences and higher education in Iran, under the mode of the Shah. in 1971, It creates an Institute of Studies of the Endogenous Development, inspired by the educational ideas of Paulo Freire, to start a basic development project with the peasants of Lorestan.

After its retirement in 1985, he teaches at the University of California to Berkeley (the USA) during six years, then, as from 1993, in Claremont Colleges of Pitzer. He is established then in France, where he teaches at the American University of Paris.

Its many diplomatic activities in the third world lead it to reflect on the Développement, and more particularly on poverty. It comes from there to distinguish the poverty (lifestyle based on sobriety) and the misery (impossibility of reaching means of subsistence). This twenty years reflection will lead to the publication of its work When misery drives out poverty (2003). Friend of Ivan Illich, it took part in his reflections on the development.

Quotation

the generalized propagation of misery and indigence is an obviously inadmissible social scandal, especially in perfectly capable companies to avoid it. And the visceral revolt that it causes of each one of us completely comprehensible and is justified. But it is not by increasing the power of the machine to create tangible properties and products that this scandal will end, because the machine setting in motion for this purpose is the same one which manufactures misery systematically. It is a question today of seeking to include/understand the multiple and major reasons scandal. It is this research which leads me today to show how much a radical transformation of our lifestyles, in particular a réinvention of poverty chosen, from now on became the indispensable condition of any serious fight against the new forms of production of misery. (When misery drives out poverty)

Works

To learn how to be , (in collaboration), Beech/UNESCO, 1972.
the North lost, reference mark for after development , in collaboration with Gilbert Rist and Gustavo Esteva, Lausanne, editions of In-low - 1992.
The Post-Development Reader , compiled and introduced by Majid Rahnema with Victoria Bawtree, Zed Books, 1997.
When misery drives out poverty , Actes Sud, 2003.

External bonds

Conference on poverty, encyclopedia of the Agora (Quebec).
a maintenance on poverty.
Entretien '' the richness is a threat for the human rights ''.
a discussion with Ivan Illich.

See too

After-development

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