Archive - 2009 - Article

دل خوشی‌

این روزها وقتی به بیرون خانه می‌رویم، چه می‌بینیم؟ جوانان و نوجوانانی که شور و هیجان انتخابات به سرشان افتاده. شب‌ها بوق ماشین‌ها و موتورهای‌شان همراه صدای ضبط‌های‌شان که نوار شاد ایرانی و خارجی گذاشته‌اند، با فریادهای تبلیغاتی له و علیه احمدی‌نژاد و موسوی مخلوط است، در حالی‌که با سرعت زیاد می‌رانند، برای اینکه خودشان را نشان دهند؛ اینها به تصویری عادی تبدیل شده است، تصویری که در هیچیک از انتخابات‌های گذشته نظیرش را ندیده بودیم. چه شده است، چه اتفاقی در جریان است؟ دلیل این هیجان دوباره چیست؟ (هیجانی از جنس دوم خرداد 76) آیا این می‌تواند به این معنا باشد که هر چند دوره یکبار مردم به این انتخابات‌ها دل می‌بندند؟ می‌گویند، مردم ایران حافظه‌ی تاریخی قوی‌ای دارند، می‌گویند مردم ایران باهوش هستند. بارها این را شنیده‌اید که مردم ایران روحیه‌ی لطیف و باذوق و قریحه‌ای دارند و خیلی از چیزهای دیگری که از فرهنگ و تمدن ایرانیان گفته‌اند.>>>

A look at my two countries

Earlier that day the BBC reported that a “far right, anti-immigrant” party in the UK – a Nazi party in all but name – had won two seats in the European parliament – there were pictures of its fascist leader laughing in victory, not unlike King Cockroach in my apartment. Then there was news of elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its president – as outspoken as he is reactionary – has been locking horns (or antennae) with an ever-so-slightly less reactionary leader whose wife, dubbed the Michelle Obama of Iran, a veiled version, of course, has been helping him along in his campaign>>>

Renewed revolutionary zeal

It is likely that Khamenei will wait to see how this first chapter in a more overt confrontation with his potential rivals will play out. If Ahamdinejad is defeated in the election, Khamenei will likely try to distance himself from the more radical elements of the new generation and seek reconciliation. But this opening gambit launched by Ahmadinejad is not without risk for Khamenei and the regime as a whole. By attacking some of the regime’s top personalities directly, Ahmadinejad may have just opened up a Pandora’s box. In the last few days the President’s rivals have already attacked him and his allies with numerous counter-allegations of corruption, incompetence and untruthfulness, the magnitude and tone of which are extraordinary for the Islamic Republic>>>

انتخابات 88

اکثر طرفداران میرحسین موسوی، عاری از احساس مسئولیت، ایران نو- استعمار و دیکتاتوری زده را با کشورهای پیشرفته اروپای غربی، ژاپن، استرالیا و آمریکای شمالی مقایسه میکنند که حداقل 300 سال تکامل شیوه تولید سرمایه داری و انکشاف نیروهای مولده و مناسبات اجتماعی مربوط به آن را پشت سر گذارده اند. این بخش از مردم ایران بسادگی انتظار دارند که در طول چهار سال مدیریت کشوری دولت احمدی نژاد، ایران همان فاصله ای را در مسیر پیشرفت فناوریها، انباشت سرمایه و آزادیهای اجتماعی و سیاسی بپیماید که برای ملل غرب صدها سال طول کشیده است. در مدت چهار سال میتوان ظواهر را تغییر داد، اما تغییر در اعماق بوروکراسی اداری، اقتصاد، ایدئولوژی، سیاستگذاری، قانونمندی، سرمایه گذاری در بخشهای راهبردی، آموزش و پرورش، بهداشت، تامین خدمات سلامتی، احترام به حقوق زنان، مردم سالاری وامانت داری به مدت بسیار طولانی تری نیازمند است>>>

Face of change

More than 25 years later in the 2005 presidential elections, Iranian reformers used SMS messages and blogs to encourage votes against the block of supporters that swept current President Mahmud Ahmadinejad to power. Although they had little success, the reformist bloggers who actively followed the elections found themselves in the ranks of Iran's opinion makers and intellectuals. Today, the lack of primaries in the presidential elections cuts the active election period to less than a month and the flurry of activity common during this one month has only been exacerbated by the exchange of information and mobilisation made possible by online technologies. Readers of Iran's early blogs have become bloggers in their own right and are using the popular online application Facebook to promote their preferred candidate>>>

Vote him out

Iranians from every political stripe have taken to FACEBOOK to discuss whether they should vote in this month’s presidential election. There are numerous daily online articles on the subject; it is now a hot dialogue among the Iranian diaspora. Many argue that their vote does not count, that at the end of the day, all four frontrunners--Ahmadi Nejad, Karrubi, Musavi and Rezai—are of the same mold, and that the outcome is clear anyway. Most Iranians also remember the Khatami era when more than 70 percent of the population voted for him and the result was that very little changed. Therefore, they have come to conclude that no matter what, in the Islamic Republic, their vote doesn’t really count because the structure of the regime stays intact. Is that true? Maybe, maybe not>>>

Prospects for the 2009 Election

Large voter turnout for Iran's June 12 presidential election would be a double-edged sword for the country's hardline leader, Ali Khamenei. Although Khamenei would like to maximize participation in Iran's elections, which he sees as an affirmation of the regime's legitimacy, higher turnout would likely lead to a smaller share of support for hardliners. Such was the case with Mohammad Khatami's 1997 landslide victory over Khamenei's favored candidate, a result due primarily to a larger than expected voter turnout that caught the regime off guard. This year's June 12 presidential election provides Iran's 46,199,997 eligible voters with a choice between only four out of the 476 presidential aspirants>>>

مادرم معذرتم را بپذیـــــــــــــر

ای مردِ پُر از باد وُ غرور
باید اینک بپذیری در ذهن
عصرِ روشندلی وُ جلوۀ فرهنگ به آغاز شدست
مردوُ زن زوجِ برابر هستند
وَ زنان خالقِ تو تویِ جهانی هستند
که تو در پهنــــۀ آن سینــۀ خود گستردی:
"منم این طاوُسِ عِلیّن منم"
>>>

Show and tell

In elaborate speeches, Mousavi has been mesmerizing university audiences thirsting for anything other than stale lectures filled with long quotations from Koran in Arabic verse, which most people don't understand, riddled with militant-sounding speechifying typical of the ideological conservatives. Mousavi has been spreading the news that, unlike others, he believes that 'principled orthodoxy' and 'reformism' are but two sides of the same coin, and both are needed for an Islamic society to thrive in the modern world. Mousavi, besides having the biggest following supposedly and the best chance of ousting the incumbent president Ahmadinejad, seems also to be the candidate Western 'moderates' like to see win>>>

Dispatch from Tehran

Night is falling again on Tehran, and like each night for the last week, hundreds of people are gathering in the streets of the city in a sort of election fervor. Presidential elections are to take place in a week, with the first round of voting set for next Friday, June 12. From my apartment, I can hear the crowd forming in my neighborhood; we are located just one block away from the national television headquarters, which has become a sort of symbolic hub for these growing demonstrations. Sitting here right now and trying to write is almost surreal, as I can hear the chanting, yelling and sirens below while I try to concentrate and gather my thoughts. I can't help but imagine how tonight's action might build on last night's energy and move further away from these elections and towards something else, something bigger... but what?>>>

Back from the cold

President Obama has spoken with conviction of the US’s reformed thinking on ‘democracy promotion’. Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia are Muslim states where democracy has yielded significant fruit in the form of moderation to political behaviour and the consolidation of democracy. In today's Iran in contrast, the right to freedom of expression is curtailed; thus no one can engage directly with critical political issues. In addition, general disillusionment with politics means political literature is now largely unfashionable in Iran. Iranians are trapped in a spiral of political alienation. Having said that, our attention should remain fixed not on the identities of the protagonists, but on the part they play in strengthening or weakening democracy in Iran>>>

رشوه و رستگاری

در اداره ای که کار میکنم همه به خوبی می دانند که من اهل رشوه و حق و حساب گرفتن هستم. راستش تا حالا کلی مقاله و پژوهش های میدانی و خیابانی و میلانی در خصوص غیر قابل اجتناب بودن رشوه گیری انجام داده و حقانیت آن را به همه آدم و عالم ثابت کرده ام. رساله معروف بنده به نام " رشوه و ادبیات ایران" به چندین زبان زنده و مرده و نیمه جان دنیا ترجمه شده و هر روز از طریق تلفن و ایمیل سئوالات فراوانی در این خصوص به ویژه از هم میهنان مقیم خارج دریافت می کنم که خواستار توضیح این فن ظریف و تعمیم آن به همه ممالکی هستند که در حال حاضر به حضور رعایای ممالک محروسه ایران مزین شده است. سایتی نیز دراین مورد راه انداخته ام با عنوان : زیرمیزی.پول چایی دات کام که در خدمت همه علاقمندان است>>>

Secret of the River

Every day we go along the river
And your body
Takes on the smell of the water.
Seeing us, the wild geese
Tune up their battle horns,
And a cat behind its green hideout
Lifts its tail in triumph. >>>

Tragic choices

The word tragedy, derived from the ancient Greek words for goat (tragos) and song (aedien), invokes the creature’s plaintive cries. The cacophony of confused voices – on the streets, in the media and in campaign debates and jingles – surrounding Iran’s upcoming Presidential elections bring to mind the term’s origins. Iran’s post revolutionary regime, described by such paradoxical terms as “theocratic democracy” and “dual government” is the cause of the Iranian voters’ vows. The country’s electoral process, while working well in the middle, featuring hard-fought contests and hard-won votes, is rigged on both ends: candidates have to be vetted by unelected bodies before they can run for office and, once elected, they are kept from setting defense and foreign policy>>>

Hanging president

The sharp rise in the number of death penalties in Iran must be viewed in the context of other radical efforts of the last four years, all of which have been articulated an d justified as calls for “decisiveness in treating criminals”, “no retreat to satisfy the West”, or, adopting “revolutionary measures inside the country.” Responsible for this hard-line approach have of course been no other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his administration. This uncompromising stand has not been confined to the executive branch. Over the last four years, Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has publicly supported this line>>>