Life

We still have a dream

While sexual assault and rape in Iraq war remains largely ignored and disregarded, while the incidence of acid attacks and rape of Afghan Women in recent weeks by Taliban forces remains unresolved, while women in Iran still enduring violence, arrest, detention and harassment perpetuated by government in physical space and cyberspace and on November 25th, the website of advocates for changing the discriminatory laws against women in Iran was filtered for the 17th time and while the endless atrocities against women in Congo, Sudan and Rwanda, forced prostitution and trafficking , honor killings, and many other forms of violence against women and girls are widespread, the global civil societies, human rights defenders, peace activists, women’s right activist and feminists embarked on the 16 Days of Global Activism Against Gender Violence>>>

"زن ها فقط یه بدن اند"؟

اون زمونا که ما یه الف بچه بودیم و کله مون مثلن بوی قورمه سبزی می داد، به آمریکایا فحش می دادیم که نژادپرست اند، سیاها را قبول ندارن و اینا. یه روز یه آدم بیکار، پرسید؛ حاضری آبجی ت زن یه سیاه بشه؟ خب، راستیاتش فکرشو نکرده بودیم. آبجی مونا دوست داشتیم! چطوری می شد بدیمش دست یه سیاه؟ حالام نقل ما جماعته، حرف که مالیات نداره، آدما می زنن. یعنی بس به حرف، حالا خیلیا یه پا "فمینیست" شده اند! ولی خب، از یه طرفم اگه شومام که یه خانوم حسابی هستی، قبول کنی که این "بدن" کله روش نیست، دیگه حَرَجی به آقایون نیست، هست؟ یعنی شوما میگی آقایون باید فکرشون را عوض کنند؟ خب اونا که نزائیده اند، نسابیده اند، نشُسته اند، نروفته اند، خیلی که حالیشون باشه و بخوان طرف ما را بگیرن، یه چیزای می نویسند مث "آزاده خانوم ..." با چه میدونم دکتر چی چی... یه روضه آبگوشتی با ادویه ی روشنفکرانه! خداوکیلی باس قبول کرد که یه چیکه شم تقصیر خودمونه، قبول نداری؟>>>

Close Camp Ashraf

With your election, a new administration now has the opportunity to revisit US-Iran relations and come up with new ideas and policies. No doubt you have already been inundated with advice and lobbying on this issue. We make no apology for adding our voice on the subject of the Iranian terrorist organisation Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – a group which will no doubt be lobbying your administration on its own behalf. The members of this group, in particular its 3000+ uniformed militants in Iraq, are the victims of deception and human rights abuses and this issue, small as it is, needs urgent attention. The MEK’s fundamental message to your administration will be that it is the largest, most popular, pro-democratic, opposition group and that only this group can effect change in Iran>>>

A Time to be Thankful

Every Thanksgiving, I remind myself of the many blessings in my life, but while doing that, somewhere in a secret corner of my mind, I also list the many more things I could have been thankful for. Such thoughts aren’t strong enough to spoil the mood, nor am I ungrateful enough to verbalize them, but they’re there and for once, I’ve decided to pour them out. This reminds me of something I had heard a few years after the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Following a variety of sanctions and restrictions, Iranians experienced a horrible economy combined with a huge shortage and I heard over and over from incoming passenger about how unbearable life in Iran had become. A friend told me this story>>>

The lessons of the Fedayeen

First of all, one has to remember that it is easy to criticise all of this in retrospect, just as it is easy to underestimate the repression of the shah and the islamic republic. The influence that the Fedayeen had in the birth of the new left and on the Iranian revolution is historic and cannot be taken away, though a very heavy price was paid for it. But there were many mistakes - militarism, Stalinism, centralism, the culture of the heroic guerilla and the professional revolutionary. As the organisation disintegrated, not surprisingly heroes suddenly became villains in the eyes of many supporters. A lesson that I personally learnt is that without debate, without democracy, without the ability to discuss every aspect of theory, your organisation will end up as a sect rather than a serious force capable of leading a revolution>>>

مأموریت «یک اسکادران هموسکسوئل منحرف آمریکایی»!

در سایت‌های اینترنتی، اخبار و گزارش‌های خبری را دنبال می‌کردم که چشمم به مطلب زیر افتاد. پیش خودم فکر کردم بد نیست آن را با شما خوانندگان عزیز در میان گذاشته، سؤالی را نیز مطرح کنم. به نظر شما گفته‌های زیر را ممکن است چه کسی به زبان آورده باشد؟ آیا شما به عنوان یک روزنامه نگار که پیدا است نظر مساعدی هم نسبت به نظام سرمایه داری دارید، خبر دارید که این واردکنندگان دموکراسی و حقوق بشر به عراق، اسکادرانی از هموسکسوئل های منحرف امریکایی سازماندهی کرده و آن را با ماموریت تجاوز به کودکان ۱۰ تا ۱۶ ساله عراقی به عراق فرستاده اند؟ آیا خبر دارید دو اسکادران از مزدوران جنگی را به همراه سگ های تربیت شده یی که به آلت تناسلی زندانیان دست بسته حمله می‌کنند، برای جوانان بالغ عراقی که بازداشت می شوند به این کشور فرستاده اند؟>>>

The magnificent fjords

I came to Norway with certain predilections. They were mostly based on reading about the country and personal encounters with a few Norwegians. Two were especially memorable. A budding journalist attended a summer school with me in college and a veteran diplomat shared a l with me last panel year to discuss international relations. In the fifty years that separated these two meetings, as the saying goes, “Ekofisk changed Norway.” The discovery of oil in that offshore field in 1969 has transformed Norway from a small, poor, and almost inconsequential country to a very rich state that often plays an active, generous role in global peace projects. The image of Norwegian as a people has undergone a commensurate transformation.>>>

Los Olivos – A Day

How is it that I find myself seated across from him in a romantic setting such as this, on a warm sunny August day, alone and allowed to soak in the moment? It takes a good bit of practice for me to gather my thoughts and release them to the passing breeze. I want to be wholly at this table – it is hard though. I have to chase the stubborn thoughts; which refuse to leave, insisting that they be witness to this. I will to focus on the mere pleasure of a simple fare with a person who happens to have slithered his way into my heart. Who is he? Do we ever know? Well, I have only shared a handful of days with this man and fewer nights even. This time around, I don’t have to ask ‘who am I’ – a much more pertinent milestone. So I settle to enjoy this “familiar stranger”>>>

Reading Kafka at Harvard (2)

At day break on Wednesday, January 17, 1996. A tremor shaking the old house to the roots I thought, but the surge of sounds drilling into my peaceful sleep bespoke of an impending crisis of a different kind, one that would instantly transform my life for years to come by imposing on me all the existential horror of a Kafkasque nightmare. Luckily, that night my wife Sylvia and our little Sabrina were staying with my mother-in law who was recuperating from an ice-related car accident. Winter had arrived in full force that January. Lying in bed with the bedside lamp on, I didn’t move but tried to grasp what was happening. A luminous fresco of clouds was gazing through the bay windows; expectant mother nature had found an empty theater to mount a small absurdist play. The heavy knocks on the door sounded as if I had been hit in the head.>>>

Berkeley Rep Does Arabs

Shahrazad entered and she had the whitest porcelain skin and the lightest blond hair. Dark-haired and dark-skinned actresses surrounded her, playing her sister and slaves but this future queen, the rescuer of Moslem virgins looked eastern European not Middle Eastern! And gone was her self-assertion, the will to decide her own destiny. In Mary Zimmerman’s The Arabian Nights, King Shahryar explicitly asks the Wazir for her. When the father brings news of this fate, Shahrazad weeps and finally acquiesces, reminding herself and the audience that she might be able to save other lives. Her wedding night encounter with the king is screechy, almost whiny. The sexual act is barely implied; yet the gleaming dagger at Shahrazad’s throat is real. It dominates the first act as the unhinged king, ferocious in his desperate pain, keeps it there and presses it into her flesh in every bit of conversation between them >>>

آخرین روزها

روز یازدهم فروردین ماه سال 1361 (31 مارس 1982) با سبیل تراشیده و ریش نتراشیده، با چهره ای خسته و درهم "پای آبله و خسته، غریبه و دلمرده، با ترس كبود، راه گم كرده، متحیر و عاجز، خسته و ناتوان، آشنا به هویت خویش، ولی درمانده، اشكی به یك چشم و خونی به چشم دیگر، در حالی كه نمیداند به كجا خواهد رسید؟ به زمهریر هاویه؟ یا به كنار حوض كوثر؟" با كیف دستی كوچكی از فرودگاه "شارل دوگل" بیرون آمد. در اتوبوسی كه از فرودگاه به شهر میرفت، نگران و پریشان، در ردیف آخر نشسته بود. برای دوستانش از ایران تعریف میكند و از تیرباران بیرحمانه، دوست نزدیكش سعید سلطانپور حرف میزند و از اینكه پس از آن مجبور شده به زندگی مخفی پناه ببرد و بالاخره از آپارتمان كوچك و دخمه مانندی كه در تهران داشته است حرف میزند اما لبهایش میلرزند. >>>

آزادي وجدان: پايه مردم سالاري

وقتي كه شيرين عبادي پشت ميكرفون مي‌آيد همه برمي‌خيزيم و برايش كف مي‌زنيم. او ديگر به خودش تعلق ندارد. نماينده‌ي ملت است. اعطاي جايزه صلح نوبل به يك ايراني به ملت ما فرصتي تاريخي داده است تا عليرغم حكومتي سركوبگر و ويرانگر به جهانيان نشان دهد كه جنبش آزاديخواهانه‌ي مردم ايران درون و برون مرز، طرفدار زن، صلح و مردم سالاري است. البته تا آن روز برخي از سخن ها و مصاحبه هاي شيرين عبادي را شنيده بودم و از برخي از مواضع او انتقاد داشتم. ولي اكنون مي‌خواهم خودم سخنان او را بشنوم و از نزديك حضور او را حس كنم. وقتي از قتل مختاري، پوينده و فروهرها حرف مي‌زند و از تبعيض نسبت به زن در ايران سخن مي‌گويد شاد مي‌شوم و پس از شنيدن نام ناصر زرافشان از دهان او شروع به كف زدن مي‌كنم. ولي متاسفانه شيرين عبادي در افشاي ماهيت ضددموكراتيك رژيم از حد آوردن چند‌ نمونه فوق فراتر نمي‌رود و بخش عمده‌ي صحبت خود را به تجاوز آمريكا به عراق اختصاص مي‌دهد كه در جاي خود خوب است ولي مي‌توانست آن را از تريبون مجلس در تهران نيز ايراد‌ كند>>>

Letters to Majid

The alarm went off as the feeble late autumn sun was breaking through the window, illuminating the room, telling her it was time to get up to go to work. She couldn’t. She had woken up from a dream at 4:00 a.m., unable to fall asleep again until 6:00 a.m. She forced herself out of her bed, but couldn’t get very far. She made herself a cup of tea and inched her way over to her computer, where she sent a note to her boss, telling him she wouldn’t be in today. The dreams had become a part of her life over the past few weeks. Each time they visited her, she was useless the next day for she would have spent most of the night recovering from them. Sipping her tea at her computer, she had an idea. What if she wrote him a letter and explained the dreams and her feelings to him? All of a sudden she felt a little burst of energy, desperately needing to write down that which haunted her and ached inside of her >>>