|
Friday * Gold digger My sympathy and support goes to Ebrahim Golestan ["Hormat"], yet another forgotten and ignored Iranian artist in exile while the likes of Rose Issa ["Poisonous"], who have joined the gold rush by insisting on being an admirer of the Islamic Republic and its art. ["London calling"] Ms Issa is talking rubbish as she has been corrupted by too much money, too much high quality hospitality inside Iran, and too much cushiness in the most expensive hotels and guest houses in Tehran and other beautiful cities of Iran. In other words she is talking from baad-e-shekam when she says such nonsense about c Ebrahim Golestan's comments. The fact of the matter is that when she deals with the Islamic Republic of Iran, she is not thinking about the welfare of Persian arts or Persian artists! She is merely pretending to do so in order to get the Islamic Republic to foot all her bills. Right now she is earning a fortune plus all expenses, from the Islamic Republic, by pretending that she is ever so busy promoting Iranian arts, while the truth is that she does not give a damn about Iranian arts. All she cares about is earning a luxurious life by giving lip service to arts and artists from Inside Iran: she is leaning that way, towards inside Iran, simply because that is the side where her bread is buttered most generously >>> FULL TEXT * Now I understand my Iranian husband Thank you so much for your profound and much-needed article ["Break the cycle"]. I am an American woman married for 10 1/2 years to a "liberated" Iranian man. One minute I think I have an equal partner and then five minutes later I'm the Mommy who has to prop him up and make him look good for his career. Meanwhile, I'm criticized for not making enough money while staying home during the day to raise our son and working in the evening. It seems like he can't make up his mind what he really wants me to do. One minute he is thanking me for doing such a great job with our son and how advanced this 2 year old is compared to others who are always in day-care and the next he is criticizing me for not making enough money. I know that he loves the fact that I take care of everything at home so he can focus exclusively on his career. Then he drags out everything he has done for me and how I would be nothing without him. He loves to use his insecurity to control me. Most of the time we are quite happy. His family adores me. They should, I have helped support them for the last five years. If it weren't for my insistence, my husband wouldn't have given them a dime. But there are moments when I want to scream "Go back to Iran and get a servant. I'm tired of being disrespected." It is a beautiful feeling to know that if things get too bad I don't HAVE to take the verbal abuse. I would survive. My heart would be broken but I would survive. Do you know when the verbal abuse started? It was right after our first trip to Iran. Something fundamentally changed in his psyche. I don't know what. Don't get me wrong, he is a beautiful person: kind, generous, etc. A great father, nice to everybody. I know he loves me. I just think he is so confused. One minute he wants me to be strong because he knows in this way I have helped him immensely and he does admire me. The other minute he needs to prove his dominance >>> FULL TEXT (Name withheld) * I respect all people I enjoyed your article ["Break the cycle"]. Thank you. I am one of the fortunate ones who was brought up by a mother and father who loved me and gave me the self-confidence to care and respect all people. They were the rebels of their generation. They were of different religions- my father, Jewish; my mother, Muslim. They met as national table tennis champions in Iran in the late '50's and ran away together to Switzerland. I consider myself fortunate to be the son of rebels. It gave me a different view. I must say that the generalized Iranian male mentality of which you speak may be generalized further to plenty of the American men I met in college. I was fortunate enough to meet many strong and independent women (my mother and sister no exception) and learned to value these qualities. But to be honest, I can't say that I ever feared or felt threatened by strength, success, intelligence, or independence in a woman. I think some of these things we are taught and some of it is innate. I do agree that growing up in an environment that taught me that we are all equal as people must have something to do with it. I am sorry that Iranian men have gotten/earned this reputation. I must say that I did not trust Iranian men for a long time because of this very mentality you describe. But I am happy to have met some really caring Iranian men and dropped my generalization. You tell me....do you think that Iranian men fall to the extremes of sensitivity? I may have my own generalizations to still work through. once again- thank you for the article Arash Babaoff * Electra conflict Ms. Fassihian's article on the roots of relationship problems between Iranian men and women was disturbing for me ["Break the cycle"]. Not because I disagree with many of her arguments, and not because I am a mama's boy Iranian man with problems forming relationships and a huge ego the size of the Mercedes S-series I drive around, but because it places all the blame on the shoulders of the male counterpart of the relationship and goes further to blame the evil mother figure. Now this reeks of "oedipal conflict" or " Electra conflict" or whatever else you might want to call it. You see, the problem is not that I have not been able to form a meaningful relationship with another guy, the real problem is that the evil mother (in law) has poisoned the innocent boys thoughts and so, he can't see the truth. She has taken him away from me. How can anyone expect respect from someone they do not respect? Respect is a mutual thing. If you truly believe that all Iranian men are egomaniacs, it will be very hard to respect there thoughts and ideas when they are different from the mainstream. Any difference that Iranian men might have compared to non-Iranians will be explained by this element. Cultural differences will be marked as cultural deficiencies. Don't be mistaken, I believe there are problems with our culture that need to be addressed and chauvinism is obviously prevalent in our culture, but I wanted to know what Ms. Fassihian meant when she writes >>> FULL TEXT * Cheapening genocide While it is certainly true that religious minorities are not treated according to international law in Iran (though Iran's record is certainly far better than many of her neighbors') Mr. Mirfendereski certainly does go way too far when he characterizes it as "genocide" ["Article 64"]. Talk about cheapening a word! And while I can theoretically see his point of view that "Article 64 separates Iran's religious minorities from the mainstream", lets consider the consequences of the absence of such a law: Considering the very small populations of the recognized religious minorities in Iran, in the absence of Art. 64 it is quite likley that they would have no parliamentary representation at all. I'm sure that Mr. Mirfendereski would be the first to complain about that too. Other ways of tweaking the system will can have a range of potentially negative consequences. For example, setting aside a much larger percentage of the seats in the Majlis for religious minorities would be undemocratic since it would result in their over-representation. Increasing the number of recognized religious minorities would dilute their voting strength, and encourage factionalization (after all, why guarantee seats for just five religious minorities instead of 55 - and why not guarantee seats for other types of minorities, ie: ethnic, linguistic, handicapped, aged, income groups etc.) Simple statistics dictates that eliminating a religious qualification altoghether would result in even fewer representatives of religious minorities in parliament. * Invisible discrimination Well-done Nakissa Sedaghat ["Polite racism"]. You certainly have an in-depth knowledge of the Canadian immigration laws and have done your research, all right. Yet, I still believe that comparatively, Canada has accepted more Iranians immigrants more conveniently than most European countries. Nevertheless, I don't argue with you that the Act has its flaws and could be well improved. When it comes to racism, I cannot agree with you any more. You call it "polite racism", I call it "invisible discrimination". You relate to immigration laws and immigration officials, I have practically experienced it in my day-to-day life, since I have migrated to Canada. There are thousands cases of racism-based discriminations specially in employment, wage and benefits and job promotions. Itís not a secret that Anglophones are still in power in Canada and hold the key positions in this country. In those organizations and corporations that Anglophones are in charge, if they have to hire any non-Anglophones, these individuals are only allowed to limited progress and given the chance to be promoted to a certain level of hierarchy. Just observe the Globe and Mail senior management appointment and promotion announcement ads for a period of time and compare the percentage of Anglophones who are appointed to senior executive positions versus the others including the Francophone. This will give you a clear indication as to whatís going in the business circle of this country. These are well known facts in Canada and no one deny it. Now, if Mr. Bruce Kermane -- who seems to be "kaaseh garm tar az aash" -- doesn't like to hear it, I suggest he jumps in the nearest ocean. * Classic Soraya I noticed a letter concerning Soraya's whereabouts ["Erased from history?"]. Browsing thru internet, I came across this classic photo of Soraya. Thought you may want to post it: //www.cros.net/soraya/Empress/empress.htm
|
|
 |
Web design by BTC Consultants
Internet server Global Publishing Group