Life

We will never be silent

I am Mehdi Saharkhiz, Proud son of the journalist and political activist Isa Saharkhiz. He is in jail for speaking his mind in opposition to the dictators that hijacked the elections in Iran. He was kidnapped in a way that his ribs were broken, he is kept in solitary confinement in an undisclosed location. My dad dedicated his life in order to depose the Shah and help with the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran—a republic that was supposed to be free and respect peoples’ votes, voices, and opinions. My father spent years fighting Saddam whom had illegally entered Iran's sovereign land and imposed a war against the Iranian people. He fought alongside his brother, my uncle, Saeed who was eventually killed in the war, and millions of other brave Iranians>>>

Iranian You

I am part Iranian, part Danish. Mention of my Iranian blood stops people in their tracks these days. It used to be something that most outside our San Francisco bubble avoided. "Iranian". Not anymore. The world is watching, not enough, but the world is finally watching. So people want to know how I feel. What is this conflict about? How am I impacted as an Iranian woman? Yes, they hear the catch word of the day, "Iranian", and they want to know how I feel. Hm. I was on Facebook the moment the video of the now-well-known-then-unknown-and-nameless-woman Neda's death was released. I watched her die>>>

Point of no return

More than one month has passed since the ruling faction of the Islamic Republic tried to silence all voices of dissent by rigging the election results and staging a semi coup-d’etat. By now it looks like a large portion of young Iranians have come to share the views that many intellectuals and progressive forces have had since before the elections: a regime which is founded on injustice and fear is not reformable; a view that reflects the realities of the streets of Iran today. Meanwhile, the so-called reformists and their supporters outside Iran, who had received a severe blow on the night of the elections, saw their game of haggling within the system completely crushed and ruled out by the Supreme Leader>>>

Revolution in my living room

The burst of publicity on the Iranian people’s peaceful freedom fighting has proven to be not always so peaceful through our television and laptop screens. In my house, such broadcasts are particularly poignant. YouTube videos are playing throughout the house, surrounding my parents and me with the sounds and struggles of the Iranian people’s bittersweet cries. We’re also surrounding ourselves with the sounds of loving and creative solidarity events like poetry readings and musical collaborations from all across the globe. Sometimes it feels like it’s all right here in my living room, right here in America>>>

Veil as Mandated

It seems some Muslims in the U.S. have only two things to worry about, Halal meat and veiling (hijab). While Halal meat can be found only in the freezer of ethnic food stores, the veil is visible everywhere, even around public swimming pools. It is considered the most distinctive, controversial, and often resisted sign of Islamic identity especially in Western countries. In some Middle Eastern countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia where hijab is mandatory, the so-called Islamic dress codes are stringently enforced by police. Occasionally, we see a video clip on YouTube of a screaming young lady resisting arrest or begging for mercy while she is being dragged by the so-called Iranian morality-enforcer police toward a waiting police car>>>

Ulterior motives?

Bahman Maghsoudlou's "Grass: Untold Stories" not only tells the story of the film Grass, the pioneer 1924 still-documentary on the migration of the Bakhtiari tribe from their summer to winter quarters in Southwest Iran, but also the lives of three American adventurers who made the film. The book describes, in detail, and on the basis of a variety of sources, including the memoirs and books written by the three Americans adventurers, their life experiences, most importantly, their unusual adventure in making the film Grass. The first half of the book deals with their lives before leaving for Iran and the second their extraordinary adventure with the Bakhtiari migration>>>

قافیه‌ی باخته

پرسش بسیار ساده این است که وقتی در جامعه‌ای گروهی بیکار و تن‌پرور وجود دارد که به هیچ کس و نهادی نباید حساب پس دهد و تا آنجا که بخواهد کاردش می‌برد، و از آن چنان تشکیلات مستحکمی برخوردار است که بود و نبود حکومت‌های وقت را هم رقم می‌زند، چگونه همچنین گروهی می‌‌تواند پشتیبان مردمی باشد که خود در تحمیق همین مردم بیش از هر گروهی دیگر ذینفع است؛ حتا اگر سنجش زندگی فلاکت‌بار مردم را به عنوان سندی واقعی از نقش ویرانگر نیروهای سیاسی بانفوذ در آن برهه را نادیده بگیریم. تاریخ فعالیت‌ها و کارکردهای این قشر به ما می‌آموزد که هیچگاه روحانیت شیعه بدون محاسبه و یا از سر بخشندگی در جهت ارتقاء جامعه‌ی ایران به سوی دموکراسی و تمدن گامی برنداشته‌است>>>

The opposite sex

There is dualism in the portrayal of women in Hedayat’s psycho-fictions, on the one hand as an ideal, unattainable angel, on the other, as a harlot. This corresponds to the portrayal of men: the lonely, misplaced, misunderstood, well-meaning, honest, sincere and moral narrators and anti-heroes who fail in every aspect of their living; and the rabble, who succeed in every aspect of theirs. His critical realist fiction about the lives of ordinary townsfolk is different: both men and women are shown as they normally are, even though their vices often seem to outnumber their virtues.>>>

تشكیل جبهه و جنبش سبز

جنبش «سبز» ایران كه در جریان انتخابات ریاست جمهوری شكل گرفت و پس از آن به عنوان اعتراض به نتیجه اعلام شده انتخابات به یك حركت سرتاسری برای آزادی انتخاب تبدیل شد اكنون در مرحله تعادلی ناپایدار قرار گرفته است. تظاهرات میلیونی مردم پس از سركوب شدید و خونین به دست نیروهای امنیتی و بسیج كه به قتل و جرح سدها نفر و دستگیری هزاران نفر انجامید، به تدریج به تحلیل رفته است. امروز تنها كسانی كه حاضرند با شجاعت تمام خود را در معرض حملات نیروهای امنیتی قرار دهند به صورت مقطعی مانند سالگرد ۱۸ تیر به خیابان‌ها می‌آیند. از سوی دیگر، «رهبران» جنبش و به خصوص آقای موسوی به تدریج به سكوت گراییده‌اند و حالت انتظاری در بین مردم ایجاد كرده‌اند. این حالت انتظار نمی‌تواند زیاد طول بكشد>>>