Date

LEADER

Why the Green Movement is doomed

Everything I wanted to know about revolution, I learned in a project management class

by Siamack Baniameri
30-Jan-2010 (39 comments)
Change, revolution, transformation, reform is a project. Like any project, it has to meet certain requirements to succeed. Every project has some common principles. The outcome must be clearly defined, right team must be assigned, a clear strategy must be put in place, risk assessment must be implemented and most importantly … the process must be executed by the right leader. The leader must be able to sell his/her vision to the team. The team must be able to sell the leader’s vision to the stakeholders>>>

IRI

Painful Demise

Revisiting Iran's Green Movement

by Jalal Alavi
30-Jan-2010 (one comment)
While some are of the opinion that it is no more than a civil rights movement in pursuit of specific concessions from those in power, there are those to whom the movement is no less than a revolutionary phenomenon destined to topple the Islamic Republic. Whatever the truth behind such speculations, one thing is for certain: Iran’s Green Movement is the concrete embodiment of an emerging democratic consciousness on the part of the majority of Iranians, and, as such, cannot be reduced to its component parts, including its leaders>>>

COMPARISON

So much in common

The Nazi regime and Ahamdinejad’s Islamic Republic

by Fariba Amini
30-Jan-2010 (93 comments)
The English historian, Richard Evans, in his three extraordinary volumes on Nazi Germany goes into great detail about the rise and fall of the third Reich. As someone who follows the events in today’s Iran, reading the 700 pages of volume two, The Reich in Power, I am struck by various similarities between the Nazi regime and the Islamic Republic. One is the role of resentment of perceived humiliation by foreign powers in both regimes. The Nazi regime derived much of its popularity and ideological fervor from anger about the humiliating terms imposed on Germany following World War One>>>

POETRY

What changed
by jamh
30-Jan-2010
Never did I think
that with a single call
this paradise of mine
would so utterly sink.

I tried and failed
holding the handle, watching
my eyelids slowly close
to make me disappear.
>>>

NOVEL

حرامزاده - 5

اگر قرار بود حرامزداه ای به دنیا نیاید که نسل بشر همان هنگام منقرض می شد

by Dariush Azadmanesh
30-Jan-2010 (one comment)
مرگ عزیز باعث شده بود از شدت فشارها بر الهه کاسته شود. برای آقاجان مرگ همسرش نامنتظره و دردناک بود. خفته ای را می ماند که بر اثر شوکی سخت از خواب بیدار شده باشد. بلافاصله پس از پایان مراسم سوکواری و خاکسپاری عزیز تغییر رفتار آقاجان آشکار شد. بسیار بی حوصله و عصبی شده بود. کمتر سر کار می رفت و بیشتر در خانه می خوابید. کم غذا و کم حرف شده بود. او که پیش از این چندان به سروصدای محیط اهمیتی نمی داد اکنون با کمترین بازیگوشی و سروصدای بچه های مهستی خشمگین می شد و آنها را سرزنش می کرد>>>

CAPITULATION

امتیازدهی تا کجا؟

شرایط کروبی و موسوی را واداشته که مواضع پیشین خود در برابر حاکمیت را تعدیل کنند

by Hossein Bagher Zadeh
28-Jan-2010 (2 comments)
سه رهبر اصلاح‌طلب جنبش یعنی آقایان خاتمی، کروبی و موسوی اظهاراتی را بیان داشته‌اند (یا به آنان نسبت داده شده) که از نوعی پذیرش موقعیت محمود احمدی‌نژاد به عنوان رییس اجرایی حکومت یاد می‌کند. این حرکت الزاما به معنای پذیرش صحت نتیجه اعلام شده انتخابات 22 خرداد و مشروعیت دولت احمدی‌نژاد نیست. ولی در عین حال، این موضع با آن چه در گفتارها و نوشتارهای این سه شخصیت در ماه‌های گذشته دیده و شنیده شده تفاوت دارد. یعنی اینان تا کنون از پذیرش دوفاکتوی دولت احمدی‌نژاد قاطعانه سر باز می‌زدند و به هواداران خود چنین وانمود می‌کردند که به هیچ عنوان ریاست جمهوری احمدی‌نژاد را نخواهند پذیرفت. این موضع تا مدتی قابل دوام بود، ولی...>>>

CHINA

Just Say No

Boycotting Chinese goods is the easiest action we can take

by areyo barzan
28-Jan-2010 (11 comments)
The Chinese dictators know very well that the IRI has lost its national based support and legitimacy and can not survive without foreign assistance. From their own experience they know well that this type of regimes are venerable and open to paying bribes, so they can strike any deal they want with them. That was why during the past few months the Chinese government have been selling anti-riot gears and assault weapons to IRI and specially Sepaah e Pasdaran. They are providing them with tear gas electric batons, pepper spray, helmets anti riot cars (one of which was used to kill an Iranian citizen during Ashoora), water canons and other suppression tools>>>

NUCLEAR

Wicked Wisdom

Bill O'Reilly, John Bolton, Israel, and Iran

by DM
28-Jan-2010 (113 comments)
Year after year, when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program, the Israelis have threatened to attack while actually exercising restraint—whereas with Syria and Iraq, they attacked early on, without real warning, despite being faced with what arguably were lesser provocations. The reason the Israelis have held back is threefold: 1. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for them to stage such a long-range attack on their own. And even if they could get the planes there, the targets are heavily protected. And the Israelis may not even know where all the targets are>>>

BOOK

Returning to Iran

Preface to Second Edition

by sima
28-Jan-2010 (15 comments)
Early last summer, the photographer whose work appears on the cover of this book was attacked on the streets in Tehran. He escaped serious injury and arrest but his cameras, including the one that shot this picture, were confiscated. He later emailed his friends a picture of what had remained of his cameras: a lens cover and a piece of chord. Those confiscated cameras had recorded a great deal over the years. The various accounts of these years, recorded from many perspectives, are crucial in understanding the recent events in Iran>>>

POETRY

زمستان
by Morvarid
28-Jan-2010 (2 comments)
زمستان خود را تنها طی می کنم
این روزهای کوتاه و شبهای بلند را

 در این سرمای سخت چیزی را نمی توان پنهان کرد
یکی یکی خاطره ها و فکرها آشکار می شوند >>>

IRAN

Four scenarios and a nightmare

All bets are off

by Volker Perthes
26-Jan-2010 (3 comments)
It is not possible to predict political developments in Iran, even over the short-term. It may be realistic to assume, though, that scenarios for Iran in 2010-11 will still be scenarios for the Islamic Republic of Iran – that, in other words, a replacement of the existing system by another is unlikely. True, changes within the Islamic Republic are to be expected. The precise depth and direction of such changes will depend on a variety of factors originating both within Iran and its external environment. A scenario is not a prediction; quite the contrary, it provides a picture or story of different possible outcomes>>>

IDEAS

Why does religion persist?

Human beings are genetically predisposed to be awestruck

by varjavand
26-Jan-2010 (33 comments)
Throughout the history of humankind, we cannot find any phenomenon more enduring and more ubiquitous than religion. It has been with us ever since we started living in communities. While scientific investigations have not provided conclusive evidence regarding the origin of religion, many researchers believe that human beings have a natural inclination for religion because of their genetic makeup. In other words, believing in religion is rooted in our genes. We are predisposed to be spiritual beings and religion is the outward manifestation of our spirituality>>>

IDEAS

معنویت و پاکدینی روشنفکرانه

آیا میتوانند بدیلهائی برای دین باشند؟

by Ahmad Sadri
26-Jan-2010 (one comment)
رویاروئی فکر روشنگری با جهانبینی دینی در سه جبهه بود. جنبه شناختی دیدگاه روشنگری کیهان شناسی جدیدی فارغ از پیشفرضهای متافیزیکی ارائه کرد، جنبه سیاسی آن به تفکیک دین از سایر حیطه ها منجمله سیاست انجامید و بالاخره در پهنه ذهنیت فکر روشنگر زیبائی شناسی و اخلاقی جدید را بارمغان آورد. این تقابل فقط در عالم فکر نبود. در عصر جدید با ظهور پروتستانتیزم و دولت- ملتها طومار سلطه کلیسای کاتولیک بر اروپا یکباره در هم پیچیده شد. >>>

DINOSAUR

Discovery in Ramsar

Big unusual bone shapes indicate remains of a living creature

by Manouchehr Zargarani
26-Jan-2010 (one comment)
I occasionally go to Iran. During a visit in January 2009, I was taking a walk near my home in Ramsar's Katalom suburb, in Mazandaran Province. As I usually do, I analyzed sediments and rocks along the way. One day I noticed the existence of some rocks within the soft sedimentation of reddish soil (Aluminium Silicate). What caught my attention was the way they were positioned on the top of a hill. The rocks did not have earthly base, and all around the rocks was soft soil, and many of them had rather unusual shapes >>>

STORY

The Man on the Street

what does an American think of an Iranian who tries to squeeze every drop of poetry out of their encounter

by siamak vossoughi
26-Jan-2010
I don't know what the American man on the street thinks of an Iranian who is trying to squeeze every drop of poetry out of their encounter, who doesn't know what else there is for him to squeeze, because he came at age six and began an American moment which always placed the man on the street at its center, which found that center more precisely the more the man wore how lost and trembling he was, before an Iranian had even walked by. Before an Iranian had even walked by, it was the world that had him looking like that, and I'd walk by and want to tell him - you can make a country out of that, you know>>>
123456next ›last »