Features>>> Archive
TOONS Cartoons What the West fails to understand is that Iranians are much talk and little else. They are carpet dealers not warriors. Everywhere you turn these days there is talk of war with Iran. Ever since the Islamic Revolution of ’79 there has never been a time when a military strike, by the U.S or Israel, seemed more probable. I have very mixed feelings about this possibility stemming from a mixture of vengefulness, self-interest and common sense. There are very few people who would stand to directly benefit from a regime change in Iran as much as yours truly. It would mean the revival of my chance to recuperate my rather significant confiscated patrimony which at this time in my life I need more than I do a country or a sense of identity. Also, I simply hate Islamist ideology because of its unbalanced and outdated view of women. I don’t have any nationalistic feelings for Iran beyond supporting the football team >>>
An idea big enough to move the world Behind every great transformation, there lies a remarkable individual who ignites change with a vision and decision to take action. Armed with innovation and an idea more important to them than anything else, social entrepreneurs are determined to solve a particular problem, regardless of what it takes. Although they exist in every community, working tirelessly to see their vision materialized, they may not be readily identifiable. The Persian community stands to benefit by finding these people, supporting them, and helping them fulfill their dream of social change.
My clothes were gone, my suitcases were gone. "Yes, I love Iranian food. Sure, I'll try one." It was Rob's voice coming from the main dining-room. It must have been pretty loud for it to have traveled all the way through the white marble hallways that lead to that area of my mom's penthouse. Last I checked nobody in my family was deaf, so naturally I decided to get dressed and go and join the festivities. I was starving and felt the need for chocolate in my tummy. I needed to get dressed and find something to eat from the kitchen. I looked over at the couch in the corner of what used to be my room when I lived here some years ago. It was also where my travel clothes and suitcases were last night. My clothes were gone, my suitcases were gone. "Shamsi!!!" I yelled immediately at the top of my lungs. "Shamsi, come here right now!" I continued, as I got up and put my pink robe on >>>
JESUS... JEEEEEESUS... and Moses... and Muhammad... and every other prophet on earth!!!!! I am SO SICK AND TIRED of reading every headline about the U.S. and Israel preparing to attack Iran. I swear to God I'm ready to throw up "digeh"! Before, I used to read these articles, but now I just read the headline and if it says anything about the U.S. and Israel wanting to attack Iran I just skip it and go to the next news item. AND... worst of all Iranians themselves are hyping this more than others ! "baba jaan" "aadamhaay-e aqel", "professorhay-e daneshgah" who keep writing article after article about how the U.S. is preparing to attack Iran ---- use your heads a little >>>
Nobody knows how and why the country of Qatar got its name Down in the southwestern corner of the Persian Gulf lies a promontory shaped like a bilakh. It is called Qatar and nobody has been able to give a rational explanation of its name – until now, that is. How I have arrived at this study, itself, is a testament to the insightful suggestions and questions that I receive, from time to time, from friends and readers of this site. This morning, I received an innocuous inquiry about a possible connection between the word khar [Dar Vasf-e Khar] and the English “car,” as the means of transportation. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that the word “car” with its various variants and spellings is of pervasive use in the European languages. In German, we are told, the word spelled as karre, which meant a two-wheeled wagon. Because German is a sort of an entry point of our Indo-Iranian words into European languages, I thought of gari, the Farsi word for that familiar two-wheeled mode of transportation in the Iranian landscape >>>
Conversations with my father: Nosratollah Amini My father was born in June 1915 in the town of Arak, in west-central Iran, into a middle class family. He was named Nosratollah (God’s Victory). The story goes that when he was a baby, the Russian army invaded Iran -- this was the time of World War I -- and a band of Russian soldiers had come to their house. Anticipating their arrival, everyone, including his parents, had left out of fear, and in the chaos little Nosratollah was left on top of the korsi, the traditional charcoal stove that was used to heat Iranian homes, with all the household money and jewelry stashed underneath. When the soldiers saw the little baby, they left, without touching or taking anything >>> ART Painting + Photography
Are Iranians undeserving of decent leadership? I'd like to put on a very simple example to show how we probably deserve tyranny when we have it and what can be done about it. Let's assume you belong to a small tribe (a few hundred members, so that we can understand the community better and more easily) where there is a brutal tribal leader. He is the ruler of the tribe. That is a fact that cannot be disputed, either as a reality in general or as a fact within the tribe. Disputing, challenging or probaby disrespecting the tribal leader may lead to explusion, execution, imprisonment or torture, depending on the gravity or the circumstances of your action. However one thing is clear, the tribal leader is a brutal man. But why is he a brutal man while another tribal leader from the vecinity is said to be a kind and just man whose fame has gone beyound all the surrounding tribes? There are always circumstances by which one man or another becomes a tribal leader >>>
The nuclear program is not the reason The word déjà vu is on everybody’s mind and lips these days as an attack on Iran seems imminent. Washington’s uncanny creation of Iran as the WMD ogre du jour is all too reminiscent of the Iraq invasion; while the Administration’s latest deceptions remind some of Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia claiming it would reduce the Vietnam casualties. What escapes peoples’ memory is that the real déjà vu is the case of Iran herself. For the second time in little over 50 years, Iranians are about to witness yet another assault on their country by the United States. Iranians have a vivid memory of 1953, whether they witnessed it or it was passed down to them. It was the year when they fell victim to the first CIA-backed coup which destroyed their democracy >>>
Evin, Part 3: Housing arrangement for female inmates In 1993, female offenders were no longer held at Ghasr or Ghezel-Hessâr prisons; Evin was now officially the only prison in Tehran where they were incarcerated. It was situated on the mountain slopes of Darakeh and had a vast courtyard that held administrative buildings, place of worship, infirmary, and all kinds of stores including a pastry shop. The women’s section building was on the northern end of the courtyard whose gardens could not be viewed by the inmates and bounded by a mountain. The women prison’s small airing and strolling space was dry, empty and without greenery. On the first floor there was a general warehouse and a medication depot. The infirmary was on the second floor, and on the third floor the office of the Warden of the women’s prison was at its entrance, which opened to a long corridor in the back >>> SNOW Photo essay: We had a lot of beautiful snow in Washington DC area RALLY Photo essay: Anti-war rally in London
To call this discrimination is a misuse of English language. This is a hate crime. "Majid how can we trust you? You may read Quran and get ideas?" That is what I was told in one occasion by my manager at Merrill Lynch co. where I worked for more than 3 years! Merrill Lynch is the largest brokerage firm in America. An investment bank and a fortune 100 company with billions of dollars in profits each year. They have also a long track record of discrimination against African Americans, women, etc. (Google "Merrill Lynch + discrimination" for a long list of law suits and class actions some currently pending). The company employs roughly 50,000 employees out of which only 50 or so have Ph.D degrees. I was one of those with a Ph.D in physics and only one with a middle eastern or Muslim background >>>
Neither with the US nor with the Islamic Republic It seems as if the US government is following in the same footsteps [as in Iraq]. But there is a big difference when you compare today’s conditions with conditions before the attack on Iraq and that is of course the experience of Iraq itself. We know that the US government is facing a quagmire in Iraq and does not know how to end it. Moreover, public opinion in the US and across the world is against any type of military attack on Iran and even the reinforcement of US troops in Iraq. So there is a huge difference but on its own this does not mean that an attack is completely impossible. It is not. It is still possible as a last and desperate act of the Bush administration >>>
Iran launched its first space shuttle today. According to dr. Bahrami, head of Iran's aviation research center the shuttle carried material for research for the ministry of Science and Defence. Iran already had launched its satellite Sina-1 in 2005. Iranian officials say to plan more such satellite launches in the near future. For some reason this reminds me of the Star Wars during the eighties when the US and USSR made a contest out of having the most technologically advanced satellites, shuttles, aircrafts, etcetera hanging in space. This must all be part of Ahmadinejad's muscle-talk to show the US that Iran's technological progress, whether nuclear or in aviation will not be stopped by any kind of sanction or international pressure >>>
Bush administration officials and their Zionist allies in the media are trying hard to portray Iran as a rogue and defiant nation that is "thumbing its nose at the international community" by ignoring United Nations Security Council Resolution 1737 which gave Iran 60 days to halt its uranium enrichment program. In an article written shortly after the passage of the same on Dec 23, 2006, this writer highlighted some important facts that warrant repeating. First and foremost that Iran is not in breach of any international conventions or agreements. Processing of uranium is entirely within the guidelines of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has accounted for all fissile material and confirmed that none have been diverted to prohibited activities >>>
It whirls and sings and jumps out of his hands, only to return and to resume the magical and intoxicating beat of music of a different kind and texture, sporadically augmented with the sound of chains chiming. Mohammad Vali once read me a poem in which heaven was described. Among the imagery the poem described, it said: “... and people there play music, a different kind of music, with a different instrument, something we have never seen before, something that might resemble a Daf... ” Tonight I was in heaven, listening to my nephew, Pejman, playing the Daf so masterfully. I wished he would play longer... I wished he would live up here to play for us everyday.... I wished we could all be together everyday... I wished Mohammad Vali were still alive. He is up in heaven, playing the instrument that might resemble a Daf >>> VIDEOBLOG Back from a trip to Canada
I was living in a furnished studio apartment on the second floor of this motel-like complex called "The Riviera". There was a hyper-chlorinated swimming pool in the middle of the courtyard. There was also a billiards room, an exercise-room, and a sauna. The redneck downstairs had bought a red T-bird. "The damn thing nearly cost me 8,000 bucks," he'd tell me. I caught him a couple of times standing in the subterranean garage, looking admiringly at his "bird". The manager's wife was an alcoholic. And she looked the part too; thin and frail and prematurely wrinkled and old. One time she begged me to go to the store to get her vodka. I went but came back empty-handed. The clerk had asked for ID so I had to bail out without the booze >>>
Niloofar Beyzaie: Hardworking playwright in exile
Islam and Iran
Paintings
Opium production and consumption in Afghanistan and Iran I would like to discuss briefly the outline of the paper. In Part I, I discuss Iran’s history of opium addiction from 1860 to the Islamic Revolution. I will then explore in Part II the relationship between Iran’s Islamic government and opium addiction. In Part III, I discuss the rise of Afghanistan as a major opium producer. In Part IV, I explore the Taliban’s ban on opium followed by a glance in Part V at the U.S.-initiated invasion of Afghanistan and the invasion’s impact on Afghan opium production. I then explain in Part VI what the United States is doing to curb opium production in Afghanistan and suggest in Part VII that Washington’s failure to combat opium production in Afghanistan has chilled U.S.-Iran relations >>>
Chronicles of Fredrick D. Suama' Part 6: There was one person that I found it hard to approach and she was Parvin The euphonious music playing in the background suddenly made me more ashamed of myself, its melody passing harsh judgment on me. All those sexual encounters that I had with various women over the last sixteen months began to stare me in the eyes as defeats rather than conquests, failures to have a permanent relationship. I saw myself as dirty and cheap. Someone who was totally lost in the midst of his pleasures and fantasies and had become a sexual pervert as the result. I had a definite vision about my life, which I had abandoned as soon as the first storm of life began to swirl around me. I also had betrayed my family name and the tradition that I was trying to uphold. Although circumstances had forced me to quit my job and my career was obliterated, they were not to blame for the person I had become >>>
Gather me. Pull me. Comb me. Turn your face. Here I am. See me. Let me be granted the beauty of your voice, to watch the movement of your unseen apple on your throat. What time will my ears translate the moment into the language of my silent love for you, the man I live everyday to spread my arms to his earthen body, bright mind, heavenly soul. I wait for you to tell me I can stand between my silence and you to uncover and retell you everyday of my longing for you. I long for you. I long for you. I long for you. I long for you. I long for you. My voice isn't still, my hands aren't. I want to tremble when you look at me even if you never love me as I love you. I don't question the love I feel for you, and when I question, I can't find the smallest doubt, a reason not to love you. There is no reason to love you. You are the reason >>>
Few nights ago for the diligence of a friend who was under a wrong impression, me and few friends decided to explore the Persian restaurant (chelo kababi during the day and the night club at nights). Needless to say that it took me three full days to get the phone number and the address, simply because no one knew the correct spelling of this God forsaken place. I tired "08 Irania" as well as 411 several times and came out with the variety of any possible spelling of the name to no avail. So finally another friend said "Oh yea I know where it is but I heard it is not a very good place so don't raise your expectations". With that in mind and my pledge to my friend who insisted that we should go and have fun we set to go >>>
I am an Iranian man in this dystopian post-Sept 11 society-what can I do? I went out with my girlfriend a few nights ago to have a long a leisurely dinner with two of our friends in the Village. We met up with them a little late, but there were no hard feelings; despite the delay, we were in high sprits and happy to see each other. We asked each other how we had been, got caught up on the details of mutual friends’ lives, and told a few satisfying stories over some good Japanese food and beer. After dinner, we walked with them to the West 4th Street stop hugged and kissed our goodbyes, and walked up two blocks to the PATH station at 9th St. and Sixth Ave. As we had inadvertently learned on our inbound journey, the PATH train was running on a holiday schedule because of President’s Day, so we got settled in for a longer than normal wait >>>
For a long time now I had assumed that khar also meant “big”
In my opinion, Iran should build an atom bomb and test it on Mecca. Before you think I'm joking hear me out ... there's good reasoning behind this. By destroying Islam's holiest site, most Wahabi/Sunnis will be in such state of shock that terrorism will indefinitely stop worldwide. There's no recovery from that amount of Shock & Awe with tears, shit and piss combined. Helpless/hopeless Bin Laden will commit suicide. Extremists won't even have time to reach out to God because Iran just made him/her/it homeless. Not to mention Iran will probably destroy a couple of big-shot terrorists visiting the site on that same day >>> PEOPLE Photo essay: Faces in graveyards of Qazvin
America is pushing towards greater disaster if neo-cons can manufacture an invasion of Iran
There is nothing cheap or shameful in learning a cultural art form and performing it to share the sense of pride and joy I, like most every Persian girl I knew, was enrolled in the community Persian dance class soon after my sixth birthday. I hated it. I was awkward -- my gher looked like a muscle spasm and I sprained two fingers trying to beshkan. Still, my parents made me go and somehow over the next few years a sense of grace and confidence became instilled in me and I learned to love this cultural art form. It was only through dance that I began to love and embrace my culture -- a phenomenon that is true for many Persian girls. I began to notice, however, that soon after their 12th birthdays, most of the girls gradually dropped dance class never to return. The reasons they gave were similar -- their parents had wanted them to be familiar with Persian dance, but to continue it after a few years…well that would just be tacky. They did not, after all, want their daughter to be considered a “raghas” >>>
Stories that would last forever
Arab invasion of Iran lies at the root of the Iranian inferiority complex The recent pieces about the Arab invasion of Sasanian Iran have made me think hard, as they were meant to I am sure. It is an interesting debate and I for one am very desirous of it continuing in a civilized and possibly academic way. But what has made me really think is the question of why we care? Iranians generally have a common animosity towards the study of history, associating it with boring stories and names of kings and princes and the dates of their reign and wars. Surprising for a nation which traditionally liked its history, with a dash of myth and epic perhaps, and often took it upon itself to tell and retell the stories of the old. Maybe it is the fault of the historians for trying to wipe off the beautiful stories of the Shahnameh and other great works of epic in favour of “real history”, one that was not mentioned by Ferdowsi and other great epic poets >>>
It is amazingly similar to how people live their lives and make decisions in face of uncertainty Stunningly, we have same kind of characters when it comes to leading life. The followers, the sophisticated, the spiritual and superstitious! In the long run though, everyone is a loser! C'est La vie (Such is life)! It is amazingly similar to how people live their lives and make decisions in face of uncertainty. Life is a gamble. After all, you are the lucky sperm who won the lottery! In roulette you can calculate the odds of something happening. In life you cannot even calculate the odds! If you disagree ask people who bought CISCO stock on Jan of 2001. When you board an airplane do you know the odds of surviving? When you buy a house do you know the odds that market would go up or down. What is the odds of your spouse being diagnosed with a terminal illness? >>>
TRAVELERS Photo essay: Kermanshah's ancient past MITHRAISM The raised index finger as a gesture of respect was an Iranian gesture
Pressures increase on activists involved in the One Million Signatures Campaign What part of our activities in the “One Million Signatures Campaign” are unjustified and worthy of punishment? I raise this question because since the inception of the Campaign, its members have suffered the wrath of the security forces. We have become powerless, asked for mercy and are now wondering exactly what crime we have committed deserving of such retribution -- a retribution which has been inflicted upon us quietly and gradually. In the past few years, we have tried all possible civic and peaceful strategies for giving voice to these very demands which you claim not to be problematic. Once again, we have chosen the most peaceful of strategies, so that god forbid, we do not cause any problems for anyone -- meaning face-to-face dialogue and the collection of signatures. Truly, we wonder, is there a more civic and peaceful strategy than that adopted by the Campaign? >>>
The treatment of religious minorities in Saudi Arabia brings shame to all Muslims We have to face the fact that as long as House of Saud is able to buy friends and influence in the West and East no-one is going to really pay any attention to what is really going on in the kingdom. No one cares if migrant workers are abused, if women are treated as third class citizens or if minorities are discriminated, tortured, and imprisoned. As long as the arms contracts are signed and oil flows, then it is OK. As long as United States supports and protects the House of Saud and its feudal system, then we have no choice but to sit and watch. But this doesn’t mean that we have to keep silent. Sooner or later, the American people will see this regime for what it is and will demand that their government leave this unholy alliance. It is then that we will see how long this House of horror will stay in power? >>>
Focus sanctions against the IRI, not the people All indications testify that whether we like them or not, the ongoing nuclear ambitions of the IRI cannot escape the inevitable sanctions of the Untied Nations Security Council. The sanctions are underway and are capable of inflecting massive problems on our people. Blind sanctions are sanctions of food and medical supplies, including all primordial needs of ordinary people in their daily life. Blind sanctions raise serious problems like the infant mortality, malnutrition problems, the massive deteriorations in basic problems, in particular in massive poverty, the health-care system and hygienic conditions, as it was the case during the sanctions on Iraq. All we, the freedom-loving Iranians, can hope is that the inevitable sanctions will not be blindly imposed on our people, but smartly worked out to punish real culprits; all IRI’s officials and their different factions. Smart sanctions should target them, not Iranian people >>>
Political correctness is the incubator of Islamism Time and again we are told by the politically correct "experts" not to worry about Islam posing a threat to our way of life. We are repeatedly lectured that only a very small minority of Muslims are troublemakers who are giving the peaceful masses of Muslims a bad name. We are also informed that the terrorists, who happened to be Muslims, are the disaffected and the young. And not to worry, since as the fire of youth turns to ashes of old age the rebellious will mellow, as they always have. With heavy assurances like this, coming from so many know-it-all authoritative figures, we can sleep soundly without the aid of sleeping pills. After all, people reason that these pundits are "experts" whose job is to know and tell it like it is. Those who voice contrary views must be a bunch of racist, alarmist hate mongers. Who is right? >>> WINTER Photo essay: Snow & ice in Virginia
I would like to offer all Iranian.com readers a special invite to visit Nuzizo City. My good friend Darren Romeo and I built Nuzizo City with the intention of creating a peaceful, vibrant space for people to live, connect, and re-imagine what is possible. Nuzizo City is an online community where folks from all over the world come to make friends, share ideas and explore different cultures. The city is comprised of over a dozen neighborhoods that represent various lifestyles, ethnicities, and interests. I live in the Iranian neighborhood called Rumi, but you are free to move into whatever neighborhood that resonates the most for you. If you are into beach culture for example, Nuzizo Beach may be a good option. If into the arts, you may enjoy the Bohemian vibe of the Lower East Side neighborhood. It’s up to you >>>
As Iranian-Americans, we have come to look forward to receiving photo greeting cards from friends celebrating Christmas or Hanukkah - we even send them ourselves - but it seems even more appropriate to share photos and greetings on our favorite holiday, Norooz. So, as Norooz 1386 fast approaches, I wanted to let you know that I've teamed up with a friend (Shiva Sarram) to produce modern & elegant, custom photo Norooz cards. It’s been a real labor of love! We plan to launch the line officially next January, but since we have a few of the designs ready to go, we thought we would do a “soft launch” to our friends and family this year. Our Web site noroozcards.net is really just a placeholder currently >>> ART Sasanian silver
If I did it, this would be how. In recent weeks the President, Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and many other politicians have said over and over that they are not planning to attack Iran, yet they keep sending more specialized troops, aircraft carriers, and other attack units to the region. US navy can put six carriers into battle at a month's notice. Two carriers in the region, the USS John C Stennis and the USS Dwight D Eisenhower, could quickly be joined by three more now at sea: USS Ronald Reagan, USS Harry S Truman and USS Theodore Roosevelt, as well as by USS Nimitz. Each carrier force includes hundreds of cruise missiles. Even presidential candidates are in a race to outperform each other on their toughness towards Iran, emphasizing that NO OPTION is off the table >>>
Leesburg, VIRGINIA -- Four years after failing to discover any weapons of mass destruction (WMD) or evidence of links between Iraqi regime and the al Qaeda terror network, and faced with the colossal and growing violence of insurgency and civil unrest, the Bush Administration is at it again by accusing Iran of violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and aiding the insurgency in Iraq. The preposterous and since discredited dog and pony show put on Feb 11, 2007 in Baghdad by three military personnel who would not dare to go on record while claiming that Iran is providing explosive devices used in attacks on US troops, fell far short of delivering the long promised "smoking gun" linking Tehran and Iraqi militants >>>
2008 U.S. presidential candidates Doesn't it bother you that the news media take it upon themselves to tell you if a candidate to potentially become the next president is a woman or black or gay or vegetarian? Do they think that people can't see for themselves that Hillary Clinton is a woman? These days we keep hearing the generic description of 2008 presidential candidates: "If Hillary Clinton wins the election she will be the first 'female' president". Or: "If successful senator Barak Obama will be the first 'black' President". Don't you agree that this style of categorizing presidential candidates is more or less stereotyping of such candidates and seems like a reminder to the public as buyers beware? >>>
ART Paintings
A call to ceasefire in Iranian blogland I am not an internet technologist. I am not a politician. I am not, in random order, an activist, a spy, or a troublemaker. I am just an ordinary user, a consumer of information, news, and facts about things I like to see and read. I am ordinary in the way I review and learn information, not a genius, and not a complete idiot. Very ordinary. I realize, however, that I am an important player in the blogging game -- I am the audience. By virtue of their very nature, blogs are created and updated out in the open, waiting for “authorized snoops” like me, to come and read and see what the author has to say today, and to leave a comment, send a link to a friend, or to move on. It has been a scary few weeks in Iranian Blogland (affectionately called Weblogestan by some). Accusations, name calling, profanity, and downright hate are running rampant >>>
A large collection of garbage A day is not a day unless I check Iranian.com, and please excuse my vile language: it is just who I am, rude to the point of exhilaration. I was delighted tonight to find the roll-call of dictators -- marvellous -- gratified and bemused, I say. Gratified because most of them are black, as they should be, and I could not see President Bush there. There are so many nasty black dictators one wonders if there was ever a good black ruler -- alright Yoweri Musenewi and PDiddy or BigFat Daddy or one of those -- and therefore they can happily share one slot, the collective African slot, right on top, say? What were readers' selection criteria here? >>>
Part 2: Three months of disheartening visits In the beginning of our visits to the women’s section of Evin in the summer of 1993, we had a meeting with Mr. Alvandi, the head of Reform and Education for men, who also worked in a certain "Criminology Research Centre" at the Prisons Organization. First he told us that there was an Office of Supervision After Release whose employees were supposed to help released prisoners find a job, but that nothing had been done by them yet. The office existed legally, but had done nothing in practice. Then he engaged in uttering lies: "We don’t have the previous view of ourselves as a disciplinary force... " >>>
You know i live in an enchanted place
Abshaari az mowj
Ey derakhshan...
Why did I follow you?
For Damon, my Valentine
Love & life
Mes oncles TRAVELERS Photo essay: Commercial signs in Dubai
Break me to as many pieces as you can but touch me I hardly can keep my eyes open. The dining table is full of what I like or have liked at one point in my time. My dad's handmade ceramic pots with flowers, a few crystals I bought in Czech Republic in 1995, and baskets. The heater is on, and it makes funny noise. I am almost done with the boxes in the kitchen. My fingers are dry. I am going to have to put almond oil on them before I collapse to sleep. It has been snowing and there will be more snow, heavy snow, over here in D.C., the state I have moved to from Connecticut. I had planned to go shopping for the day after, for my first reading in English, from my new book. There will be another poet reading, an American. I wonder how you would sound reading to me >>>
Mazdak Khajehpour’s would-be critique seems less animated by an interest in accuracy than the need to promote his own biases. So regretfully I must counter his charge of inaccuracy with the same, and add to this one of my own: the willful distortion of my essay in the service of his own views. With respect to his specific criticisms, I offer the following rejoinders >>>
Don’t let yourself be defined by your limits. Good luck. I can’t help but put everything against the backdrop of death, destruction and transience. Or is that backdrop really just there, pure reality, or is it actively being put there by all these current events? Terrible thoughts: one day, the people I love most in this world will be gone; one day, the US will send jet fighters over Iran’s airspace and carpetbomb cities and countryside with laser-guided precision, and a big, fat missile will land right in my grandmother’s room; one day, the genocide will be billed as officially over, and everyone will say, “Never again”, again; one day, it’ll be the way it’s been for a long time now, every day; one day, I will wake up and know without a shred of doubt that I have successfully fooled myself >>>
Iranian intelligentsia in diaspora unite against revisionism This spontaneous common initiative deserves notice all the more that it is rare to see Iranian intellectuals including political and human rights activists to find common ground and solidarity for a common cause. However the excesses of the current Islamic Regime in Iran and its leaders have shed a dark shadow of suspicion and animosity towards Iranians worldwide ever since Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has clearly stated that he wished to see the “State of Israel Be Wiped off the Map” and has held an international conference including western revisionist historians, Ku-Klux Klan members and racist delegations to Tehran to examine the veracity of the Holocaust that cost the lives of 6 million Jews, Gypsies, mentally retarded or political outcasts from all over Europe’s Nazi occupied territories during WWII >>>
Stuck between superstition and the unenlightened educated class
The challenges of writing about history without footnotes
Photo essay: Iranian films in Rotterdam festival
The other day, a Canadian Iranian friend of mine asked me this in passing: As a resident of the United States, how would you feel if America attacked Iran? I haven't thought about politics in a long time, so without thinking I recycled my answer from the last time I was asked this question. Inside the brackets were my thoughts as I was voicing the seemingly RIGHT, expected and patriotic response >>>
Inacuracies about Forough Farrokhzad It was with great pleasure that I noticed that there was an article about Forough Farrokhzad in the Iranian. Forough is one of my favorite poets, and I always avidly read any article about her. However Ms. Darznik’s article "Iran’s great poet of exile" was a disappointment. I am a scientist by training, and have no pretension to being anything but an enthusiastic amateur in literature. However, to my untrained eye, her article exhibited a great deal of scholarly inaccuracy and sloppiness >>>
An international secular movement I am very pleased to be part of this movement. Coming from the Middle East, living under the Islamic Republic in Iran, one of the most brutal regimes of the 20th century, I feel very passionate about the aims of this movement. As a first hand victim of political Islam, as a woman who has lived under the rule of Islam, I have experienced first hand the brutalism and suppression of an Islamic regime and political Islam. As a left activist fighting for freedom and equality I experienced this brutal regime and this reactionary political force, loosing many friends and comrades. I have devoted my life to fight for a better world, a free and egalitarian society, where there exists unconditional freedom of expression and criticism, unconditional freedom for women and equality among all human beings, regardless of their gender, nationality, ethnicity, race, religion or beliefs >>> CONFERENCE Photo essay: U.S.-Iran conference in Washington, DC
News of North Korea's nuclear disarmament has dominated headlines. With 2 of the axis of evil members under control, it's time to attend to Iran; the notorious third leg of this so called axis conjurred up by the neocons. So what's next? The Bush administration is laying the ground work to start the process of mass brain wash as they did with Iraq. Once the polls show that the brain wash has taken a hold of the public, a few young American soldiers are going to be sacrificed to further boil the blood of the 50% of Americans who hate Iran and Iranians. These are the folks who still remember the hostages and 444 days of Amercian pride in captivity. This group also includes most of the Jews, specially the older ones and also the young redneck who just itch for a fight to prove their manhood and superiority by bombing other countries >>>
Jafar panahi's "Offside" in Rotterdam film fest Each year the Hot Spots program of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) scans the globe looking for those places where the creative energy has developed in unusual circumstances. This year the Hot Spots program focused on Bucharest (Romania) and Tehran (Iran) both capital cities which have experienced revolutions in recent decades. The Hot Spots program was intended to "tele-transport" the spectators in the Ro Theatre of Rotterdam to Bucharest or Tehran in order to experience the cultural life of these two revolutionary cities. Along with feature length and short films and videos, the Hot Spots program also included live musical performances, theatre, fashion, and the installations of graphic and audio visual artists >>>
There is no short cut to political power in Iran Over the past few years some Iranian political activists have held conferences and virtual roundtables in Europe and the United States ostensibly on how to save Iran at this crucial juncture by putting together a so-called ‘leadership council’. The actual item on the agenda of these meetings however has been nothing except outright self-promotion and vulgar or occasionally subtle displays of the participants’ inflated ‘Me’. It is one of those cases where bad form and bad content reinforce each other to produce a recipe for unmitigated failure. The leadership council would supposedly comprise of a bunch of top Iranians, a kind of brain trust or political crème de la crème who are qualified to wrest the country away from the hands of its repressing tyrants and navigate it to the shores of safety and democracy >>>
Love in Persian literature >>> Persian Many years ago, when for the first time I saw the romance of Khosrow-O-Shirin written by Nezami-ye Ganjavi (1158-1262), I wondered why he had called it "Khosrow and Shirin" and not "Farhad and Shirin". Of course, in my elementary school books I had read about the Sassanid king, Khosrow II (d. 628) and his feasts and pageants, but I did not know that the name of his beloved was Shirin. I took Shirin solely as a mate and partner to Farhad. After I read the romance of Khosrow-O-Shirin by Nezami, I found out that both Khosrow and Farhad loved Shirin. With this difference, the former succeeds in his love, but the latter does not and hurls himself from Mount Bisotoon >>> TRAVELERS Photo essay: In Boston for a friend's 2007 New Year's Eve party POETRY Video: Poem about Bush & war
Forugh Farrokhzad, forty years later Beginning in the 1950s a bold new tradition of writing by women emerged in Iran, and it would be a development that would completely transform Persian literature in the space of half a century. That women are today a vital part of Iranian literary history owes much to one woman, the poet Forugh Farrokhzad (1935-1967). Farrokhzad was not Iran’s first woman poet; a handful of well-born women began to publish their verses in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. But she was the first to rise to fame without the support of a prominent male figure. More significantly, her poetry broke totally new ground with its modern form and equally modern sensibility. In her short life, Farrokhzad traveled a great distance from most Iranian women of her time >>>
Tired of your incessant beating to some Cannibal rhythm
How Iranian men have almost collectively behaved under the Islamic Republic of Iran My wonderful 22-year-old niece, full of life and hope, asks me if I knew that Valentine’s Day does not actually have its origins in St. Valentine’s birthday, but that it is an ancient, 3000 year old Iranian celebration of women and love, called Espandarmaz, taking place on the 29th day of the month of Bahman, also called Esfandgan. On this day, she says, women and love were celebrated by men, where women did no house chores and men took care of the women in their lives. To that, I say, dream on my child! Even if true, just as the governing style of Cyrus The Great, The Persian Empire, and all the glamour of it disappeared, so has any national inkling among most Iranian men, that women are sacred and special! >>>
I gathered our separation as a step in the right direction Luck is not honest, nor loyal. Luck is not consistent and luck will not always be on your side. Depending on luck when truly needed is the worst stage of despair. One with the ability to accept fate never looses. As I entered the room I quickly pulled the card out of my pocket and glanced at the information prepping myself for the speech. The speech I provided almost every day this week as I had an unusual amount of cases. "Hello Mrs. Amani my name is Sarah I will be in surgery with you today assisting Dr. Khan locate the sentinel node." I continued to explain the purpose for this procedure on a light note, and high pitch in my voice. The radioactive materials that was soon to be injected into her breast would travel through her lymphatic system. The drug then would accumulate in the nodes and become easily detected with a gagger counter now known as a neo probe >>>
Picking stars
I could care less where he was from, or that his language was very strange, or that his alphabet looked like something done by a child I met him when I was only 16 and with a dual enrollment in high school in the mornings and college at nights. I met him my first day at college, he saw me waiting for my classes to start, sitting at the library, came to talk to me, asked where I was from and where and at what time were my classes. I answered him, like obeying an order. That night he was waiting for me after my classes and asked me to give him a ride back to his apartment, only a few blocks from campus. That was the beginning of a story that shaped the rest of my life, my first encounter with Iranians, and as I see it today, a very bad day for me and how I choose my lot in this life >>> < |
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