Cheap Thugs

Where does religious sincerity, or for that matter, religious hypocrisy, morph into political solidarity? Or pushing your question further, why are what are clearly political protests assuming a religious form? Afterall, the dispute over the elections was a political dispute. Why give it a religious dimension by chanting Allahu Akbar? Is that a sign of conformity with the Islamic Republic’s religious pretenses and hypocrisies, or, on the contrary, is chanting Allahu Akbar a way to take political protests one notch higher and strip the Islamic Republic of religious legitimacy? My hunch? The latter>>>

Democracy Begins at Home

My first lesson of true democracy came from an old neighbor in the early 1970’s. I was trying to explain why I felt so homesick. “Back in my town people knew me, I knew them. They would say hello on the streets and I would run into friends here and there. Many people in town knew my family. But here I’m nobody!” To which my neighbor said, “Oh, Zoe, everybody is somebody!” Everybody is somebody. Wow! Still, it has taken years to un-educate myself, erase the wrong lessons and come to understand that, no matter who you are, your existence is significant in some way>>>

حاج خانم و ویاگرا

رستوران شیک بود و غذای خوبی داشت. حاج خانم تند و تند غذا میخورد و تند و تند بینی اش را پاک میکرد. من تا یاد قیافه ی بدترکیب هلموت، با دندانهای مصنوعی اش میافتادم که عشق پیری اش جنبیده و با یک زن لهستانی مینی ژوپ پوش سی و هفت ساله روی هم ریخته، حرصم درمیآمد؛ آن هم درست موقعی که زنش رفته بود مکه؛ حج تمتع! پری پیش از این که حاج خانم شود، از «ضعف» هلموت حکایتها و شکایتها داشت>>>

هشدار

شبی در کافه
خواستم خاطره بنویسم
قلم و کاغذی دادندم
اکنون
استوانة فلزی آن
جای انگشت اشارة این دست را گرفته است >>>

It's Time

Over the past year, the Obama Administration has missed successive opportunities to bring real international pressure on the Iranian government to address the severe human rights crisis gripping the country. Instead, it has focused its political muscle on the singular objective of convincing Iran's leadership to stop nuclear enrichment. The result has been an almost cruel disregard for the plight of the Iranian people and their urgent need for international attention to their human rights situation>>>

The Greatest Sin

The Islamic Republic is merciless when it comes to members of the Bahai faith. It is the greatest sin to be a Bahai because in the eyes of Islam the idea of divine revelation after the death of the Prophet Mohammad—the Seal of the Prophets— is unacceptable. The regime's Shi'a leaders consider the Bahai faith dangerous; to them it is the highest form of apostasy. The Bahais are also branded as Zionists. One reason for this is that Mirza Hossein Ali Nouri, aka Bahaollah, who was forced to leave Iran, ended up in Ottoman Iraq and by way of Istanbul went to Palestine where he died in 1892 in the city of Akko, now in Israel>>>

Waiting in Transit

Such is the case with Russia who is holding out on a 2007 contract to sell Iran S-300, an advanced air defense system, worth $800 million dollars, using this as a playing card with the West for its own gain. And such is the case when a country is dependent on a superpower for help and protection. In the following, I hope to analyze two independent but inner-related narratives, when connected, will demonstrate how and why we have reached this point. The hand that fed us the poison is also holding the antidote>>>

کِش

ترس از کشیده شدن مشکلی بود که کِش با خودش داشت.
شب و روز این کش مکش روحی را با خودش حمل می کرد.
یک روز کنار دریا دراز کشیده بود >>>

Mirrors All Mine

Two thinly bodies
of glass frame the walls
in a queen-looking room
big as mother’s
where I breathe
and exhale
every foreign grain male.
Mirrors spy >>>

Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin & Clear Denial

The recent event put on by Glenn Beck this past weekend, showed me a lot about that portion of middle America that has been getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Yet the middle of these Americans seems to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Boy Oh Boy the world sure has changed for them! What used to be a porcelain complexioned rosy cheeked European immigrant, has shockingly morphed into a range of brown and yellow skinned slant and slit eyed, bushy and dark browed, beard and mustachioed horde of freaking heathens!>>>

Serving the Motherland

Upon our return to the U.S. from a trip to Iran attending the Second Great Congress of Iranians Abroad, held in Tehran August 2 and 3, 2010, I decided to give a call to a long-time political friend and a peace activist to inform her about the success of the gathering and AIFC’s plans to hold a public meeting to report on the event. In this Congress about 2000 Iranian professionals, doctors, engineers, economists, financial analysts, etc. participated to get to know each other and discover the areas they can contribute in the developments of their motherland>>>

رقابت با ولی فقیه

موازی‌سازی در جمهوری اسلامی یکی از مشخصات غالب این نظام بوده است. از دولت «امام زمانی» چندماهه مهندس بازرگان که با حکم مستقیم آیت الله خمینی سر کار آمده بود تا دوران خاتمی و پس از آن، این پدیده ظهور داشته است. تنها در دوره ریاست جمهوری هاشمی رفسنجانی، موازی‌سازی کمی تخفیف یافت. مهندس بازرگان از دخالت عوامل نامسئول در حکومت می‌نالید. بنی‌صدر از کنترل نهادها موازی عاجز ماند و مقام خود را در مصاف آنان از دست داد>>>

وادی غریبی است این گذشته

خواندن این کتاب در حقیقت تأییدی بود بر نظرقبلیم مبنی بر شیوائی داستان سرائی و مهارت نگارنده در نثر فارسی. جذبۀ داستانها، شیرینی و طنز شیوای این کتاب آن چنان دلنشین بود که حیفم آمد دیگر دوستان را از وجود چنین کتابی بی اطّلاع بگذارم و آنها را با آن آشنا نکنم. قصد دارم که این کتاب را از سه جنبه به نقد بکشم: شیوۀ نثر، طنز و سرانجام جنبه های تاریخی و اجتماعی کتاب>>>