LONDON: A religious school was attacked in Iran late Friday as public protests spread, in an uprising one policy expert said would continue “until the regime falls.”
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said Saturday that about 500 protesters attacked a seminary in the northern province of Alborz, hurling stones and leading to several arrests.
Protests have rocked major cities across Iran — including Tehran, Isfahan, Shiraz and Mashhad — amid mounting anger over the country’s economy and political system.
Alireza Nader, an independent Iran scholar based in Washington, said the Iranian government was unlikely to listen to calls made by the protesters.
“Iran is experiencing a nationwide uprising which won’t end until the regime falls or makes fundamental reforms. History shows it won’t pursue the latter,” Nader told Arab News.
“Iranians simply have had enough of the misery inflicted on them over the past 40 years. The regime could resort to major violence, but that’s likely to create an even bigger rebellion.”
Videos shared on social media in recent days have shown crowds of protesters in several cities, chanting slogans such as “death to the dictator” and those demanding an end to Iran’s regional interventions in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.
In the city of Mashhad, a cleric was seen in a video telling a sizeable crowd that “most of your representatives don’t care about people’s problems,” according to Qom News.
Nader said that the protests amount to the “most widespread anti-regime resistance movement” since the 1979 revolution in which Iran’s shah was overthrown.
The current protests follow unrest in December and January, when at least 25 people were killed in demonstrations that spread to dozens of towns and cities.
They come ahead of a new wave of US sanctions on Iran, the first phase of which will be introduced Tuesday, and involve blocks on financial transactions and imports of raw materials among other measures.
Iran protests ‘won’t end until regime falls’
Iran protests ‘won’t end until regime falls’
- About 500 protesters attacked a seminary in the northern province of Alborz
- Protests have rocked major cities across Iran amid mounting anger over the country’s economy and political system
Philanthropy can unlock investment and drive global impact, says UAE’s Badr Jafar
DAVOS: Philanthropy has the power not only to do great good, but to do so in a way that stimulates additional capital investment from business and government sources, Emirati businessman Badr Jafar told Arab News on the sidelines at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Jafar knows a thing or two about the subject. In addition to his roles as CEO of Crescent Enterprises, a multifaceted business operating across nine sectors in 15 countries, and chairman of Gulftainer, the largest privately owned container-port operator in the world, he is special envoy for business and philanthropy for the UAE, holds multiple advisory positions in the humanitarian and development sectors and co-founded the Arab World Social Entrepreneurship Program.
“The term philanthropy itself conjures up this image of the sort of billionaire donor who has lots of money to give away, and I don’t like that,” he said.
It is problematic, Jafar said, because far from simply flinging money around in the hope that some of it sticks, many philanthropists operate in a far more sophisticated way.
“Capital today is a continuum, and impact is also a continuum,” he said.
“And the sooner we start to see the benefits of alignment of capital across government, business and philanthropy, the sooner we can start to reap the rewards that come with the multiplier effect that’s generated when these pools of capital work better together.”
Philanthropy, he said, is “the forgotten child of the capital system, regarded in some parts of the world as a peripheral player, and in other parts regarded with a high degree of suspicion.”
In fact, in its best form philanthropy can act as a catalyst: “Philanthropic capital, often referred to as catalytic capital, can help to de-risk and crowd in other sources of capital, particularly from the business sector. There are many examples from around the world where donated capital without any intended financial return goes in to unlock opportunities for businesses, including in tech.”
He also feels the sheer scale of philanthropic capital is seriously under-appreciated.
“Take the US example. The recent reductions in USAID was a shock to the system. But to put things into perspective, at its peak in about 2023 USAID was less than $50 billion a year. Now that’s a significant amount of money, but private philanthropy alone in the US in that same year — and to clarify, this is excluding corporate philanthropy — was well north of $600 billion.
“Now I’m not suggesting that private philanthropy is a substitute for official development assistance — aid from government, and the nature of aid from government, is extremely important, particularly in certain settings, including humanitarian.
“But today global philanthropy is pushing $2 trillion a year, more than three times the global humanitarian and development aid budgets, and that’s a lot of money.”
Jafar is the author of “The Business of Philanthropy: Perspectives and Insights from Global Thought Leaders on How to Change the World,” a collection of discussions with 50 of the world’s most active philanthropists, including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, the Bulgarian economist and managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, and Razan Al-Mubarak, head of the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi and president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The title of the book, he said “was purposefully provocative, getting people to think about what the business world has to learn from philanthropy and what philanthropists have to learn from the business world.”
Through the examples, insights and experiences of his high-profile interviewees, he makes the case for what he calls “strategic philanthropy,” in the hope that others may be inspired to follow in their footsteps.
“The need for strategic philanthropy in the world today,” he writes, “is greater than ever. The geological fractures that constitute the headlines every day — regional conflicts, political extremism, and the resulting refugee and humanitarian crises — are compounded by environmental challenges.
“Public- and private-sector leaders in all countries are grappling with these issues daily. More than ever, strategic philanthropists across the world have an opportunity to step up to help meet those challenges.”
Jafar grew up in Sharjah, in a family “with a strong belief in giving back to the community.” The book is dedicated to his mother and father, “who taught me everything I know and are still working on teaching me everything they know.”
All royalties from the sale of Badr Jafar’s book are donated to the International Rescue Committee, in support of children affected by armed combat.
