Beyond elite demands

One of the main criticisms against the Iranian women’s movement is that it advocates for the demands of elite groups and disregards the demands and needs of women at the grassroots. Critics claim that the Iranian women’s movement is an elite movement rather than a grassroots movement, and given the fact that the discourse of elite classes differ from that of the masses, ordinary women cannot participate in this movement. Women’s rights activists in recent years too have heard criticisms that claim that the demands of the women’s movement are in reality the demands of a group of Tehran-based and educated women>>>

«مدرن شدن» بدون «سکولار بودن»

چگونگی «مدرن شدن» بدون «سکولار بودن» جراحی سکولاريسم و خارج کردن آن از بدن مدرنيته به منکران ضرورت جدائی مذهب از حکومت کمک می کند تا بتوانند توضيح دهند که نه تنها جوامع دارای حکومت های مذهبی دارای قابليت مدرن شدن هستند بلکه اساساً، با توجه به «رستاخيز مذهبی» کنونی و رفتن جوامع بشری به سوی دوران جديدی از گرايشات مذهبی، خود مذهب می تواند در مدرن سازی جوامع نقش بازی کند و بخصوص جوامع کهن و سنت زده را کمک نمايد تا عقب ماندگی های خود را مرتفع ساخته و راحت تر مدرن شوند.>>>

Democratization process in Iran

Michael McFaul, a professor of political science at Stanford University, is one of the directors of the Iran Democracy Project (IDP) at the Hoover Institute, along with Abbas Milani and Larry Diamond. “The Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution was created to understand the process and prospects for democracy in Iran and the rest of the Middle East. The central goal is to help the West understand the complexities of the Muslim world, and to map out possible trajectories for transitions to democracy and free markets in the Middle East, beginning with Iran. The project also seeks to identify, analyze, and offer policy options on the existing obstacles to democratic transition and ways to remove them and to ensure that policy makers in Washington receive advice that is non-partisan and reliable.”>>>

Boy in Prison

What an adventure, from waking up in the morning to going to bed at night, a life spent behind enemy lines, you might say, but if he did, he would say it with such a smile as to disarm any enemy, as to leave them intact but thinking, introducing them to their own country, already having accepted that they are the last to know, that they are the last to know about a prison cell in his country, about a prison cell in all the countries like his. It was all an adventure, because no place where he could find himself was any place he would've guessed as a boy in prison. I'm here on the ground with you, he could say to anybody, but I'm up in the sky too. On the ground, he could lose them, but from up in the sky, he could see them walking home, going to their own bed at night>>>

Who lies the most?

Just a few days ago I was just thinking about the current electoral process that is undergoing in the US, and comparing it to Iran. I was comparing Americans to Iranians. America is the oldest ongoing (continuous)democracy (Britain is a 'democratic' Monarchy if we may say so) and they are some of the most prepared peoples in democratic affairs. But it is so amazing that the average American voter (that means the vast majority) is not much different an idiot than the average Iranian voter. While the Iranian voter votes for an Islamist hypocrite who pretty much says nothing while lying about the most basic realities of the world, the American voter votes for a Christian who is just a bit more careful in his lies (because of the continuous harsh scrutiny by opposing media channels), though still pretty much saying nothing!>>>

War & peace

Yassamine Mather of Hands Off the People of Iran faced pro-war journalist Nick Cohen of The Observer in one of the regular studio talks organised by London’s Soho Theatre. Introducing Cohen to a packed audience, the chair, Martin Woollacott (ex-Guardian foreign correspondent), called him a “brave” but “lonely” voice on the left. A man who has doggedly stuck to his pro-interventionist stance despite the nightmare that has unfolded in Iraq. Indeed, as Woollecott correctly added, Cohen clearly thought the best form of defence was attack and had expanded his position into a general critique of the “western left’s sloppy softness - and even romanticisation - of fundamentalism”. >>>

سوتین مشکی آنت

گفتم بگو چرا مرا دوست داری ؟ گفت چون سکس ات خوب است و خوب عشق بازی می کنی . گفتم دیگه ... گفت چون وقتی سکس می کنی با بدنم مهربان هستی همیشه بوی سیب قرمز می دی . کتری را روی اجاق گذاشتم در آشپزخانه را که به بیرون بود را باز کردم . گفت دوستت دارم چون همیشه از طرز لباس پوشیدنم تعریف می کنی . گفتم خوب چون لباس هاست همیشه با روژت ست است . گفت دوستت دارم چون همیشه از عطر تنم تعریف می کنی. گفتم چون هیچ وقت نشده بوی عرق بدی . >>>

The hell with Valentine's Day

I believe in all seriousness that Valentine’s Day is a complete and utter sham masquerading as the alpha and omega of lovers' days. Rather than a day of heart-fluttering and butterflies, for many it is one of gut wrenching disappointment and the utmost dejection. Those not strong enough to resist the ineluctable desire for conformity and anonymity become pariahs even by their own evaluation. And if that wasn't bad enough the Übermenschen and Überfrauen amongst us who choose to rebel against the wave of mediocrity poised to engulf and eviscerate us at any moment, are pretty much assured marginalization and to be ostracised by society’s sheep as heartless, selfish misogynists and misanthropes respectively>>>

جمهوری اسلامی یک حکومت مدرن و غیرارتجاعی است

مقاله دکتر اسماعیل نوریعلا "آتش ارتجاع" را خواندم که غیر مستقیم ( یا شاید هم مستقیم، خدا می داند) در جواب صحبت های جنجالی اکبر گنجی در دانشگاه تورنتو نوشته شده بود. بعد از خواندن مقاله احساس کردم که اکبر گنجی در این نوشته مظلوم واقع شده است. گر چه مطمئنم آقای گنجی نیازی به امثال من برای دفاع از خود ندارند، اما پررویی را به حد تمام رساندم و تصمیم گرفتم روبروی این دو استاد بزرگ بایستم و حرف بزنم. پس اساسا نوشته من جواب به صحبت های نوریعلا نیست که من در حد جواب دادن به او نیستم، بلکه دفاع از گنجی یا "پوپر ایران" است. >>>

Both terrorists

All trilateral parts of conflicts, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Zionism, reject constantly peaceful solutions. All of them believe that Palestine is a consecrated land for their future generations and only so it must exist until Judgement Day. If all of them are at the height of their radicalism, they will gender an eternally vicious spiral of war and violence. The two antagonistic poles have different charges and sacred altars. Neither Zionism’s sacred expansionism nor Islamism’s God’s state can guarantee peace and co-existence in this region>>>

عمو سیروس

عمو سیروس همکلاسی دایی ها بود ولی درسش که تموم شده بود با یکی از همکلاسی هاش عروسی کرده بود و رفته بود شمال یک باغچه خریده بود تو یک مدرسه درس می داد سبزی می کاشت و مرغ و خروس و بوقلمون نگه می داشت
بابا می گفت چه آدم لطیفی
دایی جون بزرگه می گفت عجب خری
دایی جون کوچیکه هیچی نمی گفت
>>>

The human league

There you are, sideways
as you've never been before,
in front of the window, white
and bare in this lush decor.
You're half smiling, half surprised
at the irony of your fate,
not sure anymore of waiting
for a sign full of wonder.

>>>