کی چی شد؟

در این ماه اتفاقات مهمی رخ داد که باعث شد تعدادی از شخصیت های کشور از چیزی که قبلا بودند، خواسته و ناخواسته تبدیل به چیزی بشوند که نبودند. سید محمد خاتمی: یک فیلسوف اصلاح طلب که همه بخاطر او به موسوی رای دادند، تبدیل شد به یک فیلسوف اصلاح طلب که همه بخاطر موسوی دوستش دارند. مهدی کروبی: یک نامزد لر شجاع که اصلاح طلب بود، تبدیل شد به رئیس دیده بان حقوق بشر و رئیس سازمان زنان ایران و پس از انتخابات در شلوغی خیابانها گم شد. محمود احمدی نژاد: یک قهرمان بین المللی در عرصه خارجی و یک رئیس جمهور بدنام بی عرضه در عرصه داخلی که در عرض یک هفته تبدیل به یک جنایتکار جنگی در عرصه جهانی و یک کودتاچی بدنام بی عرضه دروغگو در عرصه داخلی شد.>>>

Mitra

Consciousness, for some a worldly trait
A world, we all dictate. Yet…
A few are free of this earth
Those who transcend this state

In seconds death arrives
In seconds lives can change
In seconds you lose your soul
Your life spent in cage

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Facebook Revolution

I took a long drag from my cigarette and reluctantly listened to the dude as he tried to explain what was taking place in Iran. The dude was so excited, he couldn’t control his movements and knocked his friend’s coffee over and burned the poor chump’s lap along with the family jewels. He exuberantly explained that a new non-violent movement is taking shape in Iran which will overthrow the mullahs and bring about freedom and democracy to the whole Middle East. He talked about Gandhi and Martin Luther King and explained that massive strikes will follow which will cripple the mullahs shortly. As I’m sitting listening to this guy, I’m thinking to myself, what a bunch of bullshit.>>>

و ناگهان، باز خطر جنگ

چند روز پیش دوستی در پیامی خصوصی، به نوشته هفته گذشته من و اشاره به امكان برخورد خشونت‌بار در درون حاكمیت انتقاد كرده بود. نوشتم كه من ترجیح می‌دهم «واقعیت» را آن گونه كه می‌بینم بیان كنم و لو این كه ناخوش‌آیند باشد. و بعد به مقالات متعددی كه در باره خطر جنگ در دوران حكومت بوش نوشته‌ام اشاره كردم، و با ذكر این كه «در آن موقع هم كسانی بودند كه می‌گفتند چنین خطری ‌وجود ندارد» اضافه كردم كه «اكنون خوشحالم كه با رفتن بوش این خطر بسیار تخفیف یافته است». امروز، اما، باید اقرار كنم كه این «خوش‌حالی» من بسیار گذرا بوده و در فاصله‌ای كمتر از چند روز پس از پاسخ به آن پیام بر باد رفته است. سه هفته پس از انتخابات سرنوشت‌سازی كه به بزرگترین بحران داخلی حاكمیت در طول حیات ۳۰ ساله جمهوری اسلامی منجر شده ، اثرات این بحران در سیاست خارجی ایران نیز به تدریج آشكار شده است.>>>

The Problem of Leadership

Given the current circumstances, it is meaningless to talk of “The problem of Leadership in the Movement and the Search for Ways to Elevate It”. This is more reminiscent of the days when political struggle was limited to the coming together of a handful of enchanted people to “form a study cell and write platforms about the world and internal conditions” and then be picked up by SAVAK, with their manuscript pamphlets onboard. The current Movement, embodied in the slow and deliberate Reformism, on a path albeit winding and laden with potholes, has been years in the offing; and in the form of elections it has drawn millions of people to the stage. Their belief in their righteousness and originality has empowered them to the point of confronting the Supreme Leader.>>>

The Butcher

The call to noon prayer beats down from the sun. A laborer mutters his devotion in the scant shade of a sapling. Enough playing and sightseeing at the marketplace. Time to go home for lunch. I had spent the day watching the grape flies at the fruit seller's shade. They float silently in the fragrant air, their wings blurred around them like halos. They read your mind. Try to grab one and it has already drifted serenely out of the way. No hurry, no panic. They know the future. On the short walk home, the sun is already bleaching memories of the fruit seller's paradise. Guide us along the straight path ...Why do we need guiding along the straight path? I wonder. >>>

Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by creation with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness>>>

The Khordad Uprising

The post-election demonstrations in Iran took everyone by surprise. Their scope and intensity upset all geopolitical pre-conceptions and calculations. Prior to 22nd of Khordad, the world seemed content to view Iran within the Fundamentalist Iran versus anti-colonialist Iran matrix. Neither views took the living breathing people of Iran into account. So when the demonstrations erupted, both camps scrambled to put their own spin on the events. The so-called anti-colonialist Left in the West dismissed it as yet another “colour revolution” such as the ones in Ukraine and Lebanon, most likely inspired and perhaps even organized by the Western powers; the liberal Western media saw in the mass demonstrations a desire on the part of Iranian people to open up to the West and its values>>>

A very ugly picture

In the aftermath of the electoral coup in Iran, the push forward by the people to force the state authorities to submit to some accountability, openly questioning the legitimacy of the state in the process, has caused a great deal of fear in both ruling factions. But, more critically, in order to consolidate the coup, the Khamenei-Ahmadinejad faction has to move carefully, so as not to inflame more intense hatred and discord among the ruling factions themselves. Hence, the insistence of the coup leaders to put the biggest blames on 'foreign arrogant powers', especially the British. And ergo the editorial in Iran's daily Kayhan, by Hossein Shariatmadari, declaring Mousavi a foreign agent>>>