Life

New age martyr

This day, on 9 July 1850, at noon, the Bab was put to death by firing squad in the public square of Tabriz, Iran. Six years earlier, He had declared that He was a messenger of God whose mission was to prepare the way for the imminent arrival of the Promised One of all religions who would come to establish a new age of peace and prosperity in the world. In 1863, Baha’u’llah announced publicly that He was that Promised One. The Bab attracted tens of thousands of people to His teachings, thousands of whom were killed in persecutions that swept Iran>>>

Opposite ends

In the late 1970's, Iran and Spain stood close to each other on the world’s stage. They both had struggling monarchies with a legacy of over 30 years of dictatorship. They both had gross national products of about $50 Bn. And, they both had populations of about 40 Million. Both countries enjoyed a long history of royalty, and they had both suffered an invasion by the expanding Islamic empire over 500 years ago. This past week I witnessed Spain’s triumphant Soccer (Futbol) team beat Germany in the Finals of the Eufa Cup. And on Sunday, it was Spain’s Rafael Nadal crowned Wimbledon’s Mens Tennis Champion, beating Roger Federer. And all this right after Spain’s Sergio Garcia was named the PGA tour’s (golf) players’ champion>>>

Old Jerusalem and beyond

When I first entered through one of the city gates into Old Jerusalem I found myself squeezed amongst hundreds of people each holding an unlit candle, politely pushing and shoving each other to get to a particular spot in The City. With great difficulty I managed to squeeze my way through the narrow walkways and escaped through an opening where I encountered hundreds more waiting eagerly for something spectacular to happen. With a big question mark dangling over my head I surveyed the crowd looking for clues. After a few queries my ignorance of the reason for the public congregation was quickly abolished. The upcoming event was related to the day of the week>>>

From Empire With Love

James Bond is arguably the mother of all ‎on-screen celebrations of white, European ‎masculinity. More than two billion people – ‎two fifths of the world's population – have ‎watched a 007 film. Only Tarzan or Indiana ‎Jones might rival his stature. For Your ‎Eyes Only: Ian Fleming And James Bond – the ‎exhibition currently running at London's ‎Imperial War Museum – sets out to outline ‎the relationship between the fictional ‎secret agent and the man who created him, ‎Ian Fleming.‎ Fleming (pictured) was born to a wealthy Scottish ‎banking family. He went to the elite school Eton and then the military training academy ‎Sandhurst. His father Valentine Fleming, an ‎aristocratic MP, was killed in 1917, ‎serving in the same unit as Winston ‎Churchill in World War I. Peter, Ian's ‎older brother, was handed the mantle of ‎family patriarch>>>

Please don’t nuke us!

By now I’m sure you’ve all seen Voices for Peace: Fifty Iranian-Americans Promoting Peace with Iran. Perhaps the idea behind it was decent enough. And maybe, at the end of the day, having it is better than not. And yet, as a fellow Iranian (ixnay the American), there were many things that made me uncomfortable. I do not think it is prudent at the moment to promote the idea of: “don’t attack Iran”. While many of us are extremely worried, publicly, we should promote the idea of direct, unconditional requests for talk with Iran. Lest we forget, she too remains a sovereign nation and has the right to decide when and if she wants to open her doors>>>

Making music, not war

On Saturday, June 28, when the fear of looming war against Iran was on the rise, here, in Prague, Iranian and Israeli musicians came together to perform in a warm and memorable concert in a prestigious and the oldest Czech world music festival, Respect, in a Woodstockesque flavor and atmosphere. Saeed Shanbehzadeh, a maestro of Ney-Anban (or as we call it in southern Iran: Ney-Anbooneh), after an hour of playing Bushehri ethnic music together with his 15 year old son Nagheeb, a very skilled drummer and percussionist, invited two Israeli percussionists participating in the festival to join them and let the people listen to an improvisation>>>

Yeh toop daram Khal-khali-yeh

Iranians in general are strong believers of the Conspiracy Theory. We thrive on political skepticism and for many years I had blamed that on the intellectuals, who pondered over taboo issues, read forbidden books and stirred suspicion. Much like the main character in My Uncle Napoleon, most of us blamed the British for our country’s problems and believed any misfortune befalling us was caused by outside powers. As I reflect on some old Persian nursery rhymes, hidden messages begins to surface, voices that have been there all along, except no one ever bothered to listen hard enough to hear them. Unlike the spider in Reverent Fulghum’s book, our rhymes fail to teach perseverance and one in particular seems to be aimed at taking away what little autonomy was left us>>>

Listen, please!

We start to have problems with listening to others and hearing them properly, when we are angry with each other. When our ego is hurt and we feel that we have been insulted, we often want to get back at the person responsible and so we stop listening to them. In these circumstances, we sometimes get very carried away and interpret everything that they say in the worse possible way to make them look bad and foolish to ourselves and others, so as to confirm what we think of them. We might even convince ourselves that they cannot be saying anything sensible or kind because then they would have been kind and sensible to us>>>

A Canadian tale

It started on another blue summer day in Lake Cowichan. We were kayaking in the river. The water was warm and transparent. Dina stopped at a small sandy beach to go for a dip. I kept diving in as deep as I could, or at least as much as the pressure in my ears would allow. The sun was illuminating the depths in shafts of light simmering with clarity. I picked up two bottle caps from the bottom and Dina was laughing. "You're always finding things!". On the last dive I saw something sparkle. When I reached it I was almost out of breath but I could see that it was a watch. East European, was the thought that entered my mind when I was looking at it on the beach. >>>

The place to be

Sanity vs Insanity

First and foremost let’s be clear on the fact that madness and insanity is a global problem and not limited to specific regions or cultures. However, in most places, the insane are almost always products of unfavorable environments, and never products of pre-planning and training. What we have today in the Middle East is a network which finance, plans and organizes development of insane humans for the sole purposes of engaging in terrorist acts against the general population. This process of “producing terrorists” requires a favorable social and cultural groundwork which has been provided by what has evolved as the post-Islam Arab cultures and religion>>>

Love knows no partition

Who would have thought? Marylou is in love! The queen of mean, the whistleblower of the year, the spy who hates me, she is in love. The woman, that people would re-route their path in the maze of the office cubicle isles just to avoid crossing her path, is in love. How do I know? Her teeth are whiter, her eyes are brighter, her cheeks are blusher, her lips are more vermilion, and her sagging breasts are perkier. Last week I figured out why there was so much change in her. She was talking to Joe, and I recognized her giggle over the partitions that separate my cubicle from the people who residing on the next isle. No one has ever heard her giggle before as long as anyone can remember. But, the giggle was unmistakably hers, a mimic of her voice, which sounds like a tree slamming into a house on a stormy night>>>

Layer after layer

The general belief prevailing among common people, Zoroastrians or not, is that the Avesta constitutes the “Sacred Books of the Zoroastrians.” Looking at the sacred scriptures of other living religions, it should be so. Baha’ism, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, and Sikhism, have their relevant sacred books. A closer look would, however, reveal that the conscious or unconscious founder of each religion or order had his or her inspired or thought-out message conveyed in person. Later the successors added much around the nucleus of the founding message and consequently produced a collection of writings, some of them in a different dialect or language>>>