philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush and former presidential candidate Mehdi Karrubi as two of the “100 top global thinkers of 2010.”
Last year, the American magazine also named Soroush, who has left Iran and now lives in Washington, DC, as one of the top 100. But the one other Iranian on the list last year was Zahra Rahnavard, the wife of Mir-Hossain Musavi, another candidate in last year’s presidential elections.
Foreign Policy failed to explain how Rahnavard could go from third on the list of great thinkers in 2009—behind only Ben Bernanke, chairman of the US Federal Reserve System, and President Obama—to oblivion this year. Rahnavard has been less outspoken this year while Karrubi has been his usual vocal self, which might have had an impact. Also, a number of Iranians, including those who respect Rahnavard, chuckled at naming her the third most important thinker in the world.
In last year’s list, Soroush was listed 45th. This year, he rose to 40th position with Karrubi in 41st place.
Foreign Policy said of its list: “They had the big ideas that shaped the world in 2010.” In many cases, the ideas were intellectual, but in others they were more dramatic or public relations gimmicks, such as holding a cabinet meeting under the ocean to dramatize the impact of rising seas on low-lying areas.
Topping this year’s list is a duo of multi-billionaires, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, for leading a movement to get the other 1,009 billionaires in the world to pledge to give away their wealth. In second place is the duo of Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Robert Zoellick, the chiefs respectively of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Obama was in third place, Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, in fourth and Bernanke in fifth, putting money handlers in four of the top five slots.
Foreign Policy lauded Soroush, who was one of creators of the intellectual base of the Iranian revolution three decades ago, but who has fallen out with the ruling elite in the Islamic Republic—and done time in prison for his criticisms.
Foreign Policy said, “Speaking in London a decade ago, a then-obscure Iranian religious philosopher predicted that, along with the ‘red discourse’ of the left and the ‘black discourse’ of tyranny, a ‘green discourse’ that embraced democracy and pluralism would rise in Iran. Abdolkarim Soroush could hardly have known then that the protesters who shook the Islamic Republic to its core in June 2009 would adopt not only the substance of his program, but also its name.
“But as the amorphous Green Movement struggles to make its voice heard against extraordinary repression, Soroush has been at the forefront of efforts to define its message, helping write an ambitious 10-point manifesto for it.
“For Soroush, the end of the protests does not signal the movement’s demise; he sees reformist views quietly embedding themselves in the public consciousness. When one critic ripped Soroush’s vision of a secular republic in Iran, saying it reminded him of governments that existed throughout the world, he replied: ‘Yes, that’s true. If everyone is walking on their legs, should we be walking on our heads?’”
Following Soroush in the Foreign Policy list was Karrubi. Foreign Policy said this about him:
“Faced with an extraordinary crackdown by Iranian authorities, most leaders of Iran’s Green Movement have faded from the public eye in the past year. This has left Mehdi Karrubi, a mid-ranking cleric who finished well behind Mir-Hossain Musavi in Iran’s disputed June 2009 presidential election, as one of the sole opposition figures left in the country.
“A reformist with revolutionary credentials that date back to the Islamic Republic’s founding, Karrubi was the first Green Movement leader to blast the regime for mistreating imprisoned opponents, and he’s still going full tilt criticizing the govern-ment’s mismanagement of the economy and the burgeoning influence of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“Karrubi’s courage carries real risks: Late last year, a special tribunal investigated him on charges of sedition, a crime that carries the death penalty. Then in September, plainclothes militia attacked Karrubi’s house and tussled with his bodyguards. Tehran’s chief prosecutor has said that Karrubi will be tried ‘once public opinion is ready.’ But he says he would welcome being brought to court: ‘It will be a good opportunity for me to talk again about crimes that would make the Shah look good.’”
Because Foreign Policy listed so many pairs of people, its list of the top 100 thinkers actually involved 121 names. And of them, 18 or 15 percent came from the Islamic world. And none of those people were terrorists! Here are the Muslims that Foreign Policy listed as among the world’s greatest thinkers.
7—Ahmet Davutoglu, foreign minister of Turkey, for “being the brains behind Turkey’s global reawakening.”
11—Feisal Abdul Rauf, the Imam of the Cordoba Institute in New York that is seeking to build a mosque near Ground Zero. He was named along with New York mayor Michael Bloomberg for “reminding a divided country that Muslims are Americans too.”
12—Nouriel Roubini, the Turkish-born economist now based at New York University, for “seeing the roots of the next [financial] crisis in the current one.”
20—Mohamed ElBaradei, former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency now back home promoting democracy in Egypt, for “proving that there are second acts in public life.”
23—Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of Palestine, for “bringing faith in technology to the Holy Land.”
27—Fareed Zakaria, the India-born American columnist, for “chronicling the rise of the rest,” a reference to the economic and political growth of many previously laggard states.
39—Mohamed Nasheed, president of the Maldive Islands, for “putting a face—his own—on the peril of climate change” by convening a cabinet meeting under water to demonstrate the threat of rising seas to his own country, which barely rises above the waters of the Indian Ocean.
40—Abdolkarim Soroush for “driving a stake through the dark heart of Iran’s theocracy.”
41—Mehdi Karrubi for “keeping the spirit of the Green Movement alive.”
45—Mohamed El-Erian, the former head of Harvard’s endowment who saw the market downturn in January 2007 and got Harvard’s money out of the market, for “reminding us just how bad things could get.”
50—Ashraf Ghani, co-founder of the Institute for State Effectiveness in Afghanistan, for “keeping the focus on governance, not just guns.”
51—Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist who has focused on Central Asia, for “being the world’s eyes and ears in one of its most volatile regions.”
52—Mo Ibrahim, a Sudan-born cellphone mogul who now heads a foundation based in Britain that is targeted at better governance in Africa, for “holding Africa to high standards.”
61—Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali woman who fled a forced marriage and now campaigns against many of the tenets of traditional Islamic culture, for “her staunch defense of Western values.”
62—Tariq Ramadan, the Egyptian Islamic scholar and grandson of the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, for “remaining convinced Islam can make peace with the West.”
87—Mozah bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the emir of Qatar, for “championing education in the Arab world.”
88—Daron Acemoglu, a Turkish-born economist now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for “showing that freedom is about more than markets.”
93—Malalai Joya, an Afghan woman activist who has often been targeted for assassination, for “embodying an independent-minded Afghanistan.”
