Battle for the Soul of Turkey

A fortnight ago Turkish prosecutors indicted 86 secular Turks on terrorism charges for their alleged involvement in plots to topple the governing conservative populist Justice and Development Party ( known as the AKP), led by Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan. Though lips across the ideological spectrum were for the most part restrained and tightly buttoned, Aykut Cengiz Engin, a chief prosecutor has stated that the suspects, believed to include at least one former general and an opposition politician, were charged either with belonging to a terrorist organisation, or of attempting to instigate a military coup>>>

Zerangi

“Zerangi” in Persian can be loosely translated as “cleverness” and to be “zerang” is to be “clever”. Most, if not all the time in Iranian culture and society, a zerang person is seen in a positive light for he or she is intelligent, resourceful and independent/autonomous and is thus what most Iranians strive to be. To be a zerang person can be applied in many situations, both positive and sinister. For example, a person who knows how the American legal system works and is able to work it to his or her advantage is zerang. A person who is resourceful in business and has made something of himself/herself is zerang. However, a person who is able to cleverly cheat his taxes and screw the system and government is also zerang. >>>

The First Iranian American

Mirza Mohammad Ali, better known as Hajj Sayyah (meaning the traveler), was born in 1836 in the town of Mahallat in Iran. His studies exposed him at a young age to modern and democratic ideas that were at the time spreading throughout parts of the world. The stark difference he observed between the treatment suffered by most Iranians under their autocratic rulers and the ideas he studied inspired him to see the rest of the world. At the age of 23, Hajj Sayyah embarked on a remarkable journey around the globe that would last for nearly 18 years. He began his travels by wandering throughout Central Asia and Europe for more than six years. Often he traveled alone and in poverty>>>

تنها راه حل

استفاده از متد ِميشل فوكو (1984 ـ 1926) در بررسی مساله جنسیت و در امر حجاب احباری، چشم‌انداز نويني در نگاه فلسفی و جامعه‌شناسانه برویمان می گشاید. فوکو به خاطر نظریاتش درباره جامعه، سیاست و تاریخ از سرشناس ترین متفکران قرن بیستم است. فوکو جزو رهبران نظری پسا ساختگرایی و پست مدرنیته محسوب می شود. جهان خارج ‌از متن، خود بخودی فاقد معنا و حقیقت است. زبان، سخن و گفتمان، شكل‌دهنده واقعيات هستند و جهان خارج صرفاً از طريق زبان و سخن شناخته مي‌شود. قوکو نشان مي‌دهد كه نظام زبان تعيين ‌كننده فرهنگ و معناست. مضافا او نشان مي‌دهد كه چگونه كاربرد زبان يا گفتمان، همواره با كاربرد قدرت همراه است. نهادهای اجتماعي در چارچوب گفتمان، قدرت و کارکردهای اجتماعی خود را مستقر می سازند>>>

کسی پای سرهنگ را نمی شوید

او می خواست در ایران بماند و اینجا بمیرد .فرزندانش استدلال پدر را فقط نشانه ای از پیری و اغتشاش ذهنی او دانسته و از اینکه سرهنگ خود را به قو تشبیه می کرد، زیر لب مسخره اش می کردند. الان سالها بود که وقتی مردم می فهمیدند او قبلاً در ارتش شاهنشاهی افسر ارشد بوده، احترام زیادی برایش قائل می شدند. احترامی نظیر دیدن و تحسین نوعی مدل قدیمی و زیبای اتومبیل که دیگر ساخته نخواهد شد. انگار قطعه ای از موزه پای درآورده و در خیابانها راه میرود. حالا دیگر کسی مسخره اش نمی کرد و بر عکس مشتاق شنیدن خاطراتش بودند.سرهنگ اصلاً حوصله صحبت نداشت. قیافه اش این اواخر شده بود مثل رهبران حزب کمونیست شوروی سابق که هیچ احساسی را نمی شد از آن خواند.>>>

Two sides of a coin

It might seem like the US consul setting up shop in Iran is only going to help those who need visas to avoid having to go to Dubai anymore. But as small overtures always do, they end up becoming far more than they started out to be. This time there seems to be a huge wave of good karma pointed at this latest ray of hope. On one side you have the legitimizing effect of giving one of the most brutal and murderous empires Persia ever had, regional credibility, and the tough admission that the US policy of isolation for the past 30 years, was wrong>>>

Ciudad Juarez: the undiscovered

It was a sweltering hot day in July, perfect for a stroll by the beach with a cold beer in hand and, shit, there I was instead at Department X receiving instruction for my next assignment – to kill a gringo in San Diego, without knowing, or asking, why and what his sins were. My boss corrected me when I said that I thought my job was limited to going after our bad guys here in Mexico. “This is a top priority, I ‘ve got orders from the very top, you know what that means?” I actually didn’t and seeing that I was shaking my head negatively, he elaborated, “that means national security stupid. So don’t waste my time any more and get on with it, the reputation of this whole department is on the line now, so don’t disappoint me.”>>>

Those days

If Afghanistan is the poorest country in the world and Nigeria the most religious, our community was like Afghanistan inhabited by white Nigerians! With the exception of a few, our neighbors were not monetarily any better off than we were. Most other houses were not any fancier than ours. Privacy had no safeguard in our community, personal and confidential information could be disclosed routinely. We used to know almost everything about our immediate neighbors from garlic to onion so to speak. At the other side of our house lived two families in the same house, a brother, Mashdi Esmaeel, in his sixties, with his wife and many kids in one side and his sister, Fatemeh Sultan with her kids on the other. >>>

Twenty Years of Silence

This summer, thousands of bereaved families will defy the Iranian government and gather at the mass graves in Tehran’s Khavaran cemetery to mark the twentieth anniversary of the 1988 massacre of Iranian political prisoners. If you have forgotten this grim anniversary, then you are not alone. In fact, you are not alone if you did not even know that such a massacre ever occurred. In scale and brutality, the 1988 massacre is unparalleled in contemporary Iranian history. It is the darkest irony of this very dark episode, that of all its human rights violations the Iranian government has been most successful at keeping the 1988 killings a secret from the international community and from many Iranians>>>

اشگ شراب...

از وقتی تو رفته ای
صد ها نخ سیگار
در لابلای انگشتان تو
خاموش مانده است
و دودشان در دل من به آهی بدل.
>>>

The enemy has a face

The looming Iran-Israel confrontation has a seemingly deterministic quality to it. Listening to the politicians, one gets a sense that powers beyond our control are pulling us toward a 21st-century disaster. Yet a great deal of the force propelling us into confrontation is fueled by ignorance and dehumanization. Israel is demonized as "Little Satan," while Iranians are portrayed as irrational Muslim extremists. Indeed, mutual ignorance of our respective societies plays into the hands of the hard-line leaders who are calling for blood and destruction. They manipulate and distort; above all, they do everything to prevent us from recognizing that the enemy has a face.>>>

Inspiring & Empowering

On July 17, 2008, Iranian.com posted an item entitled “Hopes and Concerns,” signed by Soudabeh Bashirrad (which may be a pseudonym). The article generally welcomes the formation of Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA), admires it for having brought together Iranian Americans of diverse views, and praises PAAIA for taking steps to serve the community. We applaud the author for acknowledging PAAIA’s significant accomplishments during its short history. Unfortunately, the article also contains statements that, at best, reflect serious misperceptions and factual inaccuracies. The “questions” asked about PAAIA may essentially be divided into three categories>>>