Archive - 2009 - Article

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Shah vs. Khomeini: Round 1

After the 1953 coup, Shah’s reign as an autocratic monarch started. Similar to his father’s rule, soon the parliament became a rubberstamp of the royal decrees, and the political rights were in effect suspended. However, it still took the Shah another decade before he could gain the absolute power over his court, the army and the Persian nobility. Meanwhile, he had to contend with his family, who were forcing him into divorces and remarriages; the power-hungry generals of his army, who were planning coups behind his back; and the older and wiser nobility, who were trying to teach and mentor him! Besides, the country was dirt poor and most people were illiterate and living in abject poverty>>>

First Khanom

Since becoming president in 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has become one of the most widely known Iranian politicians. In direct contrast, his wife has been one of the most discreet spouses in Iranian political history. The world got its first glimpse of her in 2005, after she accompanied her husband on a trip to Malaysia. However, she did not speak any words and has hardly ever appeared in front of cameras since then. What was even more mysterious was her identity. She was only referred to as Mrs. Ahmadinejad in the very few reports which mentioned her. Her real identity was strongly protected>>>

Taking the lead

There's going to be another presidential election in Iran in June 2009. Another chance for the reformists to get their candidate elected to the office of Presidency. Everyone in the reformists' camp agrees that they cannot afford another four years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's presidency. The policy of spend, spend and spend has proved popular with the masses since they see the short term result. However, those who look further out can see that the huge drop in oil prices coupled with the lack of currency reserves is creating a huge obstacle in the path of Iran's economic progress>>>

Three Gifts

One day my father called us and said:
I have three gifts for you--
A red heart, an hourglass, and...
O God, I don't remember the other one.
Mehdy took the heart
Opened its two halves
And strummed the strings of its chambers. >>>

خانه ای از نی

چندی پیش به جوان محقق ایرانی برخورد کردم که روی اسناد سازمان امنیت آلمان شرقی (اشتازی) کار می کند. این اسناد نشان می دهند که پس از پیروزی انقلاب اسلامی در ایران، به دلیل حساسیت ها روی شوروی و شعار نه شرقی- نه غربی حاکم بر انقلاب و همچنین به دلیل سکونت رهبران حزب توده طی سالیانی طولانی در آلمان شرقی و همکاری تنی چند از رهبران این حزب با سازمان امنیت آلمان شرقی و در نتیجه تخصص و تبحر این سازمان در امور ایران، شوروی تصمیم می گیرد که بخش اصلی امور ایران را در سازمان امنیت آلمان شرقی متمرکز کند و جالب است که یکی از افسران عالی رتبه "ک. گ. ب" (سازمان امنیت معروف شوروی) که بخشی از مسئولیت امور ایران را هم داشته، همین جناب ولادیمیر پوتین بوده که حتما معرف حضور جنابعالی هست و در سفر اخیرش به تهران "حضرت مسیح" را هم در وجود شما دی>>>

Our Friend the Atom

Malek Khanoum walked several steps from the minivan and took in a lungful of air. “The jasmines must be in bloom,” she smiled. Her voice was the same, confident and declarative. She had aged less than I imagined, but she dressed differently now. Brown headscarf, dark shoes like two eggplants, covered from neck to ankle in drab gray. Only her face showed. She had never worn makeup. Never needed it, even when she used to wear strikingly modern dresses and flashy high heels. I wondered how gray she had turned beneath her scarf. Her hair was once, as the American poet puts it, “one warrior innocent of defeat.”>>>

Give Me Back My Story

“Rooster” is one of those associations that connects me to major roads of my past, to the intersections from which different paths of association branch out. I can take any of these roads and soon be traveling to different spaces of my life and identity. It links me with many clusters of memories, to the street I was raised in, to my mother’s colleague Raana, to my playmates and a zoo we created together, to Americans, and to our yard which is itself associated with many other faces and stories. Finally I got you there. Now you are curious, asking, “How is it that your yard is associated with roosters? That is a good question that opens up a whole story of its own>>>

Casualties of Empire's Wars

On February 5, the U.S. Army announced there were 128 suicides in 2008, the highest since it began keeping records in 1980. It was the fourth year in a row that the numbers rose as the wars in the Middle East continued. Last year's Army suicide rate of 20.2 per 100,000 soldiers was also the first time since the Vietnam War that the rate was higher than the adjusted civilian rate. This is also higher than the current rate of the Marine Corps. The reason for the higher rates of suicides in the Army and the Marine Corps could be attributed to the fact that the two services have suffered the cruelty of the war in Iraq and have been subjected to repetitious deployments back to the killing fields of the Middle East>>>

سركوب بهاییان - چرا؟

در گرماگرم صف‌آرایی‌های جناح‌های‌مختلف حكومتی برای تصرف قوه مجریه جمهوری اسلامی ایران، در سایه زمزمه‌های رسمی و نارسمی برای ارتباط و تماس و گفتگو با آمریكا كه این روزها شدت گرفته است، و در برابر بحران شدید اقتصادی كه اكثریت مردم را تحت فشار قرار داده و آینده سختی را در برابر آنان نهاده است، رژیم جمهوری اسلامی به یكی از ترفندهای همیشگی خود دست زده و موجی از بهایی‌ستیزی به راه انداخته است. این موج از چندی‌ پیش با دستگیری ده‌ها نفر از بهاییان آغار شده و تا به امروز به اتهام جاسوسی برای هفت تن از آنان منجر شده است. در آخرین مرحله از این موج بهایی‌ستیزی، آقای قربانعلی دری نجف‌آبادی دادستان كل كشور طی نامه‌ای خطاب به خلف خود در وزارت اطلاعات خواستار آن شده است كه با «تشكیلات بهائیت» برخورد شود. >>>

مسیر زندگی

دوست قدیمی از تونشنیده بودم بس مدتی
دورانه پرسیدمت تا بدانم چه یاد داری

گفتی که روزی بیش از سی سال پیش
با من و خواهر توپ بازی روی میز کردی کم وبیش

جمله افزودی که این دیدار آسان نوجوانانه
برایت مهم بود و مسیر زندگی عوض کرد >>>

Band of Brothers

During a February trip to Iran, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal praised Iranian leaders for their support during the conflict in the Gaza Strip, a further indication of the strengthening ties between the Sunni Islamist group, which the United States has designated as a terrorist organization, and the Shiite regime in Tehran. Mashal's statements come on the heels of the U.S. Treasury Department's terrorist designations of al-Qaeda leaders and operatives sheltered in Iran. These latest examples of Sunni-Shiite cooperation raise new questions about whether Iran can improve its relationship with Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood.>>>

Destroying evidence

The area being destroyed in Khavaran is a desolated plot next to the cemetery of religious minorities. Families of the victims call this place "the rose garden of Khavaran" - for a rose, in a culture where it is often safer to use poetry, represents a fallen freedom fighter. The Iranian leadership calls it the "place of the damned" or the "graveyard of the infidels". There are no gravestones, monuments or markings there because the government hasn't allowed any, but families of the victims have quietly gathered at the Khavaran cemetery every September over the last 20 years to commemorate what they call "the national catastrophe" - the largest state crime in Iran's modern history>>>

آیا تنها قربانیان توهم توطئه بهائیانند؟

چند روز پیش، برای نخستین بار پس از دو دهه، جمهوری اسلامی ایران رسما و علنا رهبران جامعه بهائی ایران را به جاسوسی برای اسرائیل متهم کرد، تا یکبار دیگر جامعه بهائیان ایران را به شرایطی بازگرداند که تا نیمه دهه 1360 شمسی به آن دچار بودند. اکنون حجت الاسلام دری نجف آبادی، دادستان کل کشور، نیز بهائیان را به "جمع آوری اطلاعات و فعالیت های نفوذی و تخریب پایگاه های اعتقادی مردم" متهم کرده و خواهان مقابله وزارت اطلاعات با تشکیلات بهائی در کلیه سطوح شده است. ایراد اینگونه اتهامات سیاسی برعلیه بهائیان تکرار مکرر ادعاهایی است که اکنون برای نزدیک به هفتاد سال درباره بهائیان مطرح شده است.>>>

Christmas Eve

“Go talk to your professors, do something. The entire summer you worked for the university and they paid you nothing,” she wiped her tears.

“I owe them tuitions for the last two semesters.”

“Talk to the Foreign Students Advisor. Tell her we’ve two small kids.”

“I already did. She said that’s the university policy. If there is a balance, they garnish my income.”

“They do what to your income?” >>>