Forbidden Love

The Persian romance of Vis and Ramin, which has influenced the European legend of Tristan and Isolde and the Georgian tale of Visramiani, was composed in 1050's by Fakhraddin Asa'd Gorgani in Isfahan, Iran. It is one of the oldest examples of forbidden love in Persian literature in which a man passionately falls in love with his sister-in-law. For this reason, Vis and Ramin has not been welcome by the Persian literati in the past and present. Nezami Ganjavi (1141-1209), who wrote his romance Khosrow and Shirin, more than one century after Vis and Ramin tries to distance himself from Gorgani as follows>>>

اتو کاری

این روزها کار و بارم شده
که کابوسهایم را اتو کنم
خوابهایی که در آنها قوز کرده روی زمین
اتو می کنم چینهای صورت مادرم را
شب تا صبح، و قلب مچاله ی خودم
و نقشه ی چروک دنیا را
>>>

The End of Racism

The end of racism that I have seen has been a piece of paper and a group of white men in suits announcing that the end of racism is hereby decreed. The end of racism that I haven't seen has been those same white men looking at each other with tears in their eyes. The end of racism that I have seen has been let me tell you about the end of racism. The end of racism that I haven't seen has been let me listen to the years and years of it. The end of racism that I have seen has been Martin Luther King Day. The end of racism that I haven't seen has been What in the hell is really happening, I mean really happening, and why does one more child have to be born into this Day>>>

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؟>>>

Bread and Cheese Poems

The person who has a roof over his head
And enough for subsistence living
He is a king without a crown
So is the person who does not worry about dinner
While she is having her breakfast
When the stomach is full
It matters little whether
You have eaten bread and cheese
Or steak and lobster >>>

Booseh

The first time he kissed her by the elevator in the hotel lobby, she trembled inside. Short of breath, a bolt of lightning pierced through her, head to toe, throwing her off balance. She had to hold on to him. She was 40 – hardly an age to be taken aback by a mere kiss, let alone experience an electric jolt. It was a loving and sweet kiss – not a passionate one. His lips brushed hers apart as he lazily sought to hold her surprised gaze. He held her lips in between his, and then, ever so gently, closed his mouth over hers; and willed her to close her eyes and to melt into the kiss, daringly, deftly, kindly. Time stood still. It was 8 in the morning. They had just come back from a walk by the lake and had shared breakfast. The smell of coffee, the taste of the eggs still lingered in his mouth.>>>

خطایی کودکانه ولی چهل ساله

تغییر عمده ای که نسبت به دوران فعالیت چریکی پیدا شده است این است که امروز دیگر كمتر كسی خواستار مبارزهٌ قهرآمیز است. جالب اینکه این گریز از خشونت در مقابل حکومتی پیدا شده که در سرکوب مخالفان به نهایت از حکومت شاه خشن تر است. جالبتر اینکه بسا اوقات طرفداران سابق و اسبق همان مشی چریکی هستند که اینبار به طرف دیگر بام کوچ کرده اند. به هر حال امروز همه طالب این هستند كه هرچه قرار است به دست بیاورند بدون هیچگونه خشونت و حتی تهدید بدان حاصلشان گردد و خلاصه اینكه حكومت استبدادی حقشان را بدون هیچ دعوا و با نهایت آرامش به آنها تحویل بدهد. حقوق بشر وردی شده كه باید به دفعات كافی خواند تا كارها به مراد شود. امروز دفاع از حقوق بشر همان موقعیتی را یافته است كه مبارزهٌ مسلحانه چهل سال پیش داشت و صورت نوشدارویی را پیدا كرده كه قرار است علاج همهٌ دردها باشد. بالاخره بعد از چهل سال باز به اینجا رسیده ایم كه صلا درداده اند «حقوق بشر هم استراتژی هم تاكتیك». >>>

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>>>

Reading Kafka at Harvard (3)

If Kafka’s The Trial is about the estrangement of man from his liberty and the de-humanization and criminalization of human spirit by the fiat of modern system of criminal justice, then the lesson to be drawn from my similar story of false arrest and imprisonment on purely fictitious and trumped up charges by the campus police at Harvard University is, indeed, how the net of this system has expanded since Kafka’s days, enveloping the larger institutions of civil society, including the academic institutions that, nominally, ought to reflect and nurture the essence of human spirit and, yet, as my case vividly demonstrates, are also apt to clamp down, oppress and repress it, by various methods, often through more subtle, softer and more gentle manners than the outright criminalization of dissent and the resort to vile, naked, and unbounded cruelty>>>

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>>>