Have you ever asked your good selves the question of ‘what have we accomplished in our glorious three thousand years (or more) of history?’ The answer seems to be a resounding ‘not much.’ Well, not much with the exception of poetry. Yes, we love poetry. It’s true. Even Kahmenei’s nephew agrees. He says as much in this BBC documentary about his beloved uncle. He says that we, as Iranians, love poetry, and we all have a poetry book at home. That’s true also. I remember having one a couple at our home when I was growing up. In my own home, I replaced them with a collection of dog training books. Sorry, but they have more practical use. My new puppy still hasn’t quite gotten the hang of peeing outside.
So, let’s take a look back through our history and see what contributions we have made to the betterment of human race. Did we discover any disease? No! How about medicine? Discover any of those? No! Jet engine? No! Internal combustion engine? No! Bicycle? No! Aircraft? No! Helicopter? No! Space exploration? No! Discover any planets? No! Electricity? No! Light bulb? No! Computers? No! Plain paper for God’s sake? No! Discover any elements? No! Chemicals? No! Discover any wildlife or plants? No! Any continents? No!
So, what the hell have we been doing for the past 3000 years? Well, aside from discovering this great device, we sat on our asses and wrote poetry. Lots and lots of poetry. In fact, we are obsessed with poetry, and consider it the cornerstone of our notion of wisdom and culture, which is not really that bad of a thing if we didn’t devote our entire existence to it and ignored everything else around us. We were (and still are) so obsessed with philosophy that we didn’t even have the curiosity to discover our very own civilization that we are so proud of. Those evil, “barbarian” Europeans had to come in and tell us what our glorious past was about. How ironic is that? Poetry is so important to us that even the illiterate Khomeini jumped on the bandwagon and created a “divan.” But we all have this mindset. Just look at this site. Half of the front page articles are poetry or poetry related material.
Aah, we also discovered irfan (no, not the Pakistani guy at your local kabab house). It’s something akin to sitting on your ass, drinking wine, reading (or writing) poetry, if you’re Hafez, fantasizing about (or actually having) sex with little boys, and fooling yourself into believing that you have connected with the “divine.” Khomeini was a big fan of irfan.
Now some will surely jump in and claim that there are many Iranian scientists outside of Iran. They don’t count. A person who was either born here, came here as a young child, or went to college outside of Iran doesn’t count. They belong to the country that provided them with the education and the opportunities, and most importantly, they belong to the society that gave them the cultural derive to get them where they are. In other words, that society steered them away from poetry nights (shab-e-she’er) and reading Hafez, to actual curiosity about science and the world around them.
The sad truth is that post Islam we have been infected with the mullah culture, which is an all consuming agenda that takes curiosity away from one’s mind and focuses the person’s entire existence on religion. As a society, we know more about Hazrat-e Abbas’ horse than we know about our local fauna. That’s a sad fact.
Lastly, I have nothing against my good friends here on IC who write poetry and / or are poets. I am criticizing the culture as a whole. Picking on individuals is not productive. And to show that I am also a product of this culture, I will recite a verse:
Miazar moori keh daneh kesh ast keh jan darad va jan –e sheereen khosh ast
There! See, I can recite poetry also!
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by Tiger Lily on Tue Nov 22, 2011 05:29 AM PST.
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by Tiger Lily on Tue Nov 22, 2011 05:31 AM PST.
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by Tiger Lily on Tue Nov 22, 2011 05:33 AM PST.
Poet-Bashing
by vildemose on Sun Nov 20, 2011 10:54 AM PSTPoet-Bashing Police
By ROBERT HASS Berkeley, Calif.//www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/opinion/sunday/at-occupy-berkeley-beat-poets-has-new-meaning.html?pagewanted=all&src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB
"It is the chain of communication, not the means of production, that determines a social process."
-- Robert Anton Wilson
Did Iran delegate its reason to Khomeini?
by Hooshang Tarreh-Gol on Sat Nov 19, 2011 05:39 AM PSTNo such thing.
Since day one in power, he was faced with protests and dissent, starting with women, unemployed workers, national minority,... Khomeini became a dominant force, but his domination was challenged from the very beginning, he violently enforced his dominance, rather than obtaining it just through a simple process of delegation.
Any totalizing narratives, easily forgets all these historical facts and paints the picture of 1979 as a foregone conclusion, which was not.
Few weeks ago
by Anahid Hojjati on Sat Nov 19, 2011 05:15 AM PSTfor a while, we had blogs about contributors who had been blocked and others asked for their returns but we have not had that for a while. Thankfully Fesenjoon is back.
Rea
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Sat Nov 19, 2011 04:18 AM PSTGlad you are back also glad AO did not get banned. Although I would not marry anymore people to the Taliban.
Returned to this blog
by Rea on Sat Nov 19, 2011 04:17 AM PSTand what I've learnt, lol AO.
"It's nice of JJ to not have blocked me after I married his aunt off to a Taliban."
Love yr sense of humour. ;o))
Fesenjoon - Bro
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 04:28 PM PSTSamsam (AB) is one of us. "Az khodemooneh" as they say. He's just as much a critic of 1400 years of akhoonds' lazy aftabeh culture as you and I. He's a stand up guy.
Anonymous bugger, did we
by Fesenjoon2 on Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:05 AM PSTAnonymous bugger, did we strike a sensitive chord?!
If you wanna pat yourself on the back, there's always Mohammad Ala's blog.
Mehrban-e gerami - you're always welcome to speak your mind
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 10:02 AM PSTon my blogs, and so is everyone else, pro or con. We need to be tolerant and accepting of opposing as well as favorbale points of view.
I'm just sad that we wasted my friend TL's time. Well, I'm sure she'll move on now and won't waste her time on this blog anymore now that she has realized this a dumb subject.
RG Jaan -Thanks for the comment -on another note (also Mehrban)
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:55 AM PSTyou can guage a culture's level of backwardness by its response to criticism. And as you can see here, the needle on the backward-o meter is busting out of its socket when you look at some people's reaction.
By contrast, look at Divaneh and HG's comments. Good aticulation of disagreeing points of view. So, looking at these guys / gals, I believe that there may be hope for us after all!
It may seem dumb to you but
by Mehrban on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:55 AM PSTthe approach of delegating reason to proxies is advocated on this very site. Day in and day out. Did Iran delegate its reason to Khomeini in 1979?
Ao jaan, sorry to have spoken for your blog but Tiger asked my opinion.
Thanks, Mehrban
by Tiger Lily on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:41 AM PSTIn all honesty, I hadn't realized that the purpose of this blog was as pathetically dumb as that. Wasted my time instead. fekr kardam masalan khabariye.
EWWWWWWWW to TL, EEEEWWWWWAAAAAAAWWW
Good one AO
by Anahid Hojjati on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:25 AM PSTThankfully, I was always attracted to poets who were more outspoken.
Islamic or Sassanid
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:21 AM PSTarchitecture is just a continuation of Sassanid. There were domes like that of Ctesiphon before Islam. The Muslim rulers just used the same approach. Then the architects improved them.
Whole history is one giant continuum. People learn from others and built on it. As they say we stand on shoulders of others. No one is going to advance by themselves. The great thing about today is the availability of information.
Right now America and Europe are the main centers of advancement. Russia used to be pretty advanced under Soviets. But the money ran out and that was it. Now physicists drive taxi cabs. Things always change.
Dear Anahid - how about this one -
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:01 AM PSTDear AO,
by Anahid Hojjati on Fri Nov 18, 2011 08:54 AM PSTmay be you are lucky because she does not read ic or may be she does but she is very open minded. by the way, regarding your last comment, you do have a point but poems are just tools to communicate between poet and readersm a poem can call people to action and one can be in "seytayesh" of a dictator. among our 20th century poets, we had many that were more of a positive force than anything. poets like eshghi, farokhi yazdi, lahooti, iraj mirza, and many others.
Tiger, Islamic to you? maybe. To me it is Iranian.
by Mehrban on Fri Nov 18, 2011 09:04 AM PSTThis blog to me says that to base the foundation of one's cognitive process on dead poets writings is a dead end. And I agree.
Ps. I also think AO's concern is not just poetry but a general sense of delegating rational thought.
And now a word from Hafez
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 08:47 AM PSTHafeza mard -e nekoo naam nameerad hargez
Agar ham mord be k*r-e Hafez
*** Credit to a friend of mine who saw this blog and emailed me the verse. I think Hafez himself wrote that when he was extremely drunk and forgot his "irfan" and the resulting obligation to be "nice" to everyone. :-)
Dear Anahid
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 08:47 AM PSTIt's nice of JJ to not have blockd me after I married his aunt off to a Taliban. Seriosuly...
Dear Mehrban - don't forget the Parthian arch :-)
by Anonymous Observer on Fri Nov 18, 2011 08:51 AM PSTOne of my favorites --
Anyway, you seem to get it, along with a few others on this thread. Putting all exaggeration aside, the point is that we need a total cultural overhaul and renaissance. There is a reason why we are the ONLY nation on this planet that is being ruled by a theocracy in the 21st century, and that reason is NOT because we're God's gift to humanity. Our unjustified orgy of self indulgence and empty self aggrandizing at the expense of real modernity and progress must come to an end before our hedas can be oh so gently pulled out of our lubricated rear ends. That's all!
Dear AO
by Anahid Hojjati on Fri Nov 18, 2011 08:29 AM PSTYour comment addressed to me about JJ featuring some of your blogs and then you wrote about his khaleh, etc. That is nice that he featured this blog of yours even though you just recently wrote the other blog. May be you should not write about his relatives for a while :).
Mehrban, guess what?
by Tiger Lily on Fri Nov 18, 2011 08:27 AM PSTThose emblems of architecture are very much based on "Islamic" geometrical patterns. (Often, the material used, also is.) And the significance is that it really was Iranians who mastered and consequently exported many of the admired accomplishments of what is known as "Islamic tradition".Even the squints - on squares - and domes of mosques and the sound engineering)
Mehrban, what, in essence, is this blog saying?
My two cents more :)
by Mehrban on Fri Nov 18, 2011 07:38 AM PSTI think we have had great accomplishments in Architecture. For example maydaan naghshe jahan is a prime exmple of great urban design (if IR can keep its hands off the fabric of the Bazar and some of the housing structures around it). Each building on four sides of the square are magnificent in their own right. Many more examples in Esfahaan such as the bridges. Also the houses of Yazd for example where in a hot arid area, with the help of constructed wind catchers, entrap the wind and guide it over a shallow pool of water to create air conditioning.
I think the structure at the Maydaan Shahyaad in Tehran is a great modern edifice personifying an Iranian heritage.
So I would say we have had great accomplishments in Architecture.
I don't want to disprove this blog at all because I think in essence it is saying something very important.
HG & AB &VPK
by Tiger Lily on Fri Nov 18, 2011 06:43 AM PSTVPK, welcome to the Global Village. ;)
HG & AB, agreed. For one, science needs forms of communication, for which there are brilliant examples in that particular part of the world, as mentioned by AB, on every pillar at Persepolis.
I suppose what I would and do find interesting is how it 'translates' itself today (or how and to what extent...)....
,del
by hamsade ghadimi on Fri Nov 18, 2011 06:20 AM PST,del
fesenjoon, i have to
by hamsade ghadimi on Fri Nov 18, 2011 06:19 AM PSTfesenjoon, i have to disagree with you. we did not invent khayehmaali but perfected it both in the arena of art and science.
shotor gaav palang logic!
by Anonymous Bugger on Fri Nov 18, 2011 06:19 AM PSTSo stone carving in Persepolis proves that pre-Islamic Iranians were khayeh mal? ..like how?...So carvings showing different ethnic groups such as Indians, Egyptians, greeks, Sardicians, Khorasmians, Babylonians, Arabs, Phonicians bringing gifts to the king on the occasion of the new year translates into ancient "Iranians" being khaayeh mall?..pls elaborate professor!!!!!?..so with this logic we concur that all egyptians babylonians etc were khayeh mall?... If anything children were thought from an early age to not kneel before the corrupted & never lie for convenience. you know ,there is difference between ignorantly discounting the whole entity of "Iranians" vs finding faults that ail "Iranians" with clear anti-ommatie solutions. In comparison the former is a mere authentic whiner & the latter is a constructive reformer.
Cheers!!!
Inventions
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Fri Nov 18, 2011 04:19 AM PSTIn my immediate family we got about a dozen patents applications. And we are not even in the big league.
Why don't you folks invent a few things and apply for patents.