Iranian of the Day

Aravani Razai

I dont understand, why people are talking about, whether she is Iranian or French.

Importantly, she is a very talended Tennis player and an addition in the present list of pretty tennis players

Being Iranian paraents, she have irani features, which are always beautiful and good physic, and hopefully if she worked hard, may become world No.1 in ranking

Dear Razai, continue your hard work to become No.1

God bless you

to MRX

It is pointless to criticize Aghassi!


He is by no means obligated to broadcast to the world that his dad is Iranian.


Nobody has such obligations, therefore it is unreasonable to expect this. Stop demonizing individuals over pointless matters.

what choice does she have?

she was raised in france and she ows all the opportunity she got to become a great player from living and training on the french soil.  frankly she did us favor by mentioning that she is Iranian by blood and even played for Iran once as some one said in their posting. Look at the bone head aghasi that never even mentioned once that her dad was from Iran!

Aravaneh is great!

I think she made it to one of the quarterfinals in 2007 or was it one before quarter final? I hope to see her do really well in 2008. We are all rooting for her. Go Aravaneh!!

Just some information...

Just some Information for everybody (specially those who write things without knowing...) about Arvane Rezai!
First of all I'm really proud of her!!!
I just happened to see her playing on Eurosport a while ago, when I was changing channels on my TV and become very proud when I saw her (iranian) name AND EVEN more proud seeing the gold necklace she was waring, you know the one most of us have seen I think, the map of Iran and with the text Iran written on it. (there are lots of pictures of her wearing that necklace e.g in this page //www.aravanerezai.info/ but you have to zoome in the picture to actually be able to see)
Second off all she actually has represented Iran and played for them officially on at least two occations that I know of.
People, like myself, who have two "nationalities" have a really hard time specially after becoming famous or representing the country we live in in various occations. There are many people watching you and following you all the time so you have be very careful what to say, like her saying that she is proud of representing France but yeth wearing that necklace.
You know there is nothing wrong to like or love the country you were born or/and grow up in and also at the same time love the country of your parents!

Aravane

With all due respect, she could use a nose job.

She thinks of herself as both

not so uncommon for the hyphenated generation. She competed for Iran at the Women's Islamic Games winning Gold in 2001 and 2005. Here she is representing France. I don't think it's odd that she could consider both as her countries.

Sad thing is you consider my point as dicrediting her

My point was hearing her state the truth, that she is proud to be French (the truth not something bad), brought home the reality that there are a lot of talented and accomplished "fill in the blank with anything but Iranian" of the day, whose origins are from Iran, but are another country's claim because Iran didn't provide an inviting enough environment for them to stay (or for their parents not to move).

Claiming them as "Iranian Of The Day" while a source of temporary feel good and pride, is exactly that, a temporary warm fuzzy feeling, about a permanent reality which is that countless of talented people have left Iran never to return and to gradually become "wherever my parents moved to" Of the Day.

Good for the countries they moved to, once again pity Iran.

The sad thing is that the Americas (Canada Included), and Europe have an enormous capacity to absorb the masses, but Iran does not have an enormous capacity to export the people that should be building its future in every sense of the word.

Once again if you are failing to see that point as an attack on any single person whose picture we pop up here then I give up.

But here goes one last try: Anousheh Ansari was so proud of her identity that she wore a flag of the US on one arm and an Iranian flag on another, but I guarantee you that in 2 generations her offspring would identify themseleves about as Iranian as 4th of July.

Hell in my generation (the first generation of children to be raised in America. . .the next generation was born here)most people can't even speak farsi (not kitchen table farsi but read hamshahri and understand it).

This is not an attack on them or the generations that followed or their accomplishments.

It's a wakeup call that claiming accomplished people of the planet as "Iranian" because it makes us feel good, when they have moved on from Iran and become the "claim" of some other land is wishful thinking. Its about as far removed from current reality as starting a sentence about Iran here and now with "Cyrus the great. . . "

Fantastic

She looks elegant too. I think generally Iranians are being more assertive.

I wish I could play

I wish I could play one tenth as well as her,I've seen her play!
And, I have been playing for 15 years and a
lot of tennis players think I'm pretty good!
(of course not on a pro level)
I really hope she wins Wimbeldon or the US Open!

Wish her the Best of Luck!

Wish her the Best of Luck!

The sad thing about it all is

that even when the Iranian of the day is fully Iranian in name, birth in Iran, and all else. There is always someone on the thread trying to discredit them as Iranian and if that is not possible then they move on to attack the credibility of their achievements. When all else fails then their looks are attacked.

solh va doosti

Nadia

most Iranian

Actually, the most pure Iranian person is Khamenei.

That is why he was chosen as the rahbar.

She does not look retarded, therefore she cannot be Iranian.

Meganima

Gee, thanks for the deep penetrating glance into the obvious, so eloquently laced with the colorful language.

What does her name have to do with anything? You offer her name as proof of her identity?

Being Iranian is as much an identity as it is a passport and nationality. I can name my kid Fessenjoon Abgooshtzadeh, but if my kid is born in Sweden, and when asked what he is, states he's a Swede and doesn't consider himself Iranian, then it's irrelevant how many Iranian.com contributors nominate him as "Iranian Of The Day" The truth is the hypothetical kid has nominated himself as "Swede Of The Day."

This is not an attack on Aravane or her accomplishments, it's a simple wakeup call to the "Motherland" and the suggestion that we cannot "claim" her anymore than we can claim Andre or Pierre.

If the conditions in Iran have caused hundreds of thousands of people to leave, their offspring however talented are the "French Of The Day" or the "German Of The Day" or the "English Of The Day" or citizens of wherever their parents were forced to relocate to for a better future.

For a majority (not all but a majority) of these second and third generation immigrants their identification with Iran ends at "fessenjoon" (Nader's reasoning for her identity).

Fact is my favorite food is sushi but my being "Japanese" pretty much ends there.

Before you fire off some "beat your chest proudly" profanity laced attack at my point, consider it.

I'm pointing out that we cannot "claim" famous and accomplished people as Iranians because of their name or where their parents are from, it's up to them to declare whether they identify themselves as Iranian or not.

In the end if they don't claim themselves as Iranians they are not to fault...pity Iran for "exporting" some of its best and brightest.

Maybe we should take the whole thing lightly and let it slide and "sakht nageereem" it's just that listening to her speak about her country made it painfully obvious that "claiming" her is "delkhoshi" for her parents' generation or the 45 and above crowd (again not all) who live in the wishful dream that their foreign born and raised kids think of themselves as "Iranian" and will run back to Iran as soon as theocracy is replaced with democracy.

Sometimes "forever" is "permanent" :).

She is Fuc*ing Iranian...

She is Fuc*ing Iranian... Just read her name...

to hmm

baby, your point is kinda lost in translation. but i guess it's off your chest whatever it is you were trying to say

She is full Iranian.

She is full Iranian.

right answer

She is not going to be trained by french and play under their flags and then say I am iranian. What she was very diplomatic and showed maturity for her age.

YES She is Iranian

She did say in a recent interview that her favorite dish is fesenjoon. Now, neither Andre Agassi nor Pierre Omidyar have declared any favorite Iranian dishes. So as far as I am concerned She is Iranian and the other two ain't. I think when being Persian or Iranian becomes hip by some movie or fad, then Andre and Pierre will host a Nowrooz variety satellite TV show from LA or Las Vegas.

By French? It's better you didn't understand.

She talks about the satisfaction she feels from winning, but more importantly she talks about how proud she feels to be playing for the "colors of France" and how proud she feels about playing for her country (France). She talks about the importance of being a member of her country's team as one of the girls.

Funny we have as "Iranian of the day" a girl who considers herself French and is talking about how proud she is to be a French tennis player without even mentioning word one about being Iranian.

We are critical of Andre Agassi (a guy born in the States to an Assyrian father who left Iran when he was 19 and an American mother)because he doesn't consider himself Iranian, but a girl who was born to Iranian parents who happened to live in France is a source of pride.

Before we crown people Iranian we should stop and consider whether they consider themselves Iranian (no offense "Pierre" Ebrahim Omidyar) :)

just wondering

I was just wondering if this girl is haif iranian, she look like she is haif chines, she has mongol look

can someone translate?

I know most of the visitors to this site happen to be gharb-zadeh and understand french and what she is saying, but not all of us understand french, so can we got some subtitles or some help on what the heck she is saying?