Misc

Sadegh

I vaguely remembered this from my college days (and it's a miracle I can remember ANYTHING) and can't remember who it was who DID say it but what Voltaire actually said was "Monsieur l'abbé, I detest what you write, but I would give my life to make it possible for you to continue to write."  Someone else used the term "I disapprove...."  to paraphrase Voltaire.

:-)

Tehran/Isalm

All those that are asking 'why Tehran?' I refer you to Abarmard's reply (nicely said). Also it is difficult to get permits for filming in Iran for every city you need to apply for a separate permit.

As for those Iranians/Persians that are attacking Islam, you're against what Persia stood for. Go and read Kourosh's Cylinder, where he promotes religious freedom!

Given the opportunity you will not run the country any better than the Mullahs because you're blinded by hatred just like them. 30 years after that disaster of a revolution you're still blaming everything and everyone while sitting back and not doing anything postitive to make yourself or your country better. Ever heard of Darwin, evolve!

Either Evil Islam or Iran

I only wish they could just acknowledge even just a little about The Main Cause of our Misery for more than 1436 years with this occupying killing machine EVIL ISLAM but as we all know that is not possible inside of Iran but the sad thing is almost 8 to 9 million of us who could tell the world what the Evil Islam has done to our once great country and how pregnant Iranian women were entitled to full state benefit during their pregnancy more than three thousands years ago while the entire West was in dark age but no we just sit back since our donkey has crossed the Bridge .
Berasty Sharm Bar Ma va hamontor ke Ferdousi migoyad Tofe Afareenesh Be To Ey Roozegar.
Payande Irane Bedoone Eslame Jenayatkar.

Sadegh

A good observation

ghalam-doon

You do have a valid point and I would argue that the reason is Tehran is a reference in Iran as a most forward, since it's the most populated, modern and also the capital. This doesn't translate that the youth in Iran are not different than Tehran, but once you get to a level of modernity and social sophistication, you may challenge the system from another angle..That can happen most of the time from a more modern part of the country. Modern doesn't translate to better or good, just to make the point why Tehran is important. The population and diversity in Tehran is much more than the rest of Iran and you may get a better sets of sample than anywhere else in Iran.

Genereation “P”*

It’s amazing! Every time they want to make a film about the youth in Iran, they go to Tehran. They don’t even bother to check out the southern Tehran. IRAN IS NOT TEHRAN. It would be interesting for them to checkout the provincial capitals as well. Next time make a film about the youth in Zahedan or Kermanshah or even Shiraz or Esfahan. I bet you'll find a much happier bunch of people. The people in this film want “Azadi.” But they can’t even define what freedom is. That’s the sad part.

*pathetic.

life?

if you not happy about your life in Iran welcome to changed with me in canada and I back in Iran, Iranian government must be more friendly to help us we back in Iran

WAKE UP...

you Iranians are paying for the 1400 years of Arab invasion thru filthy religion" ISLAM"....

Now, I ask you, do sanctions help these people?

It is unfortunate that some misguided Iranians are actively involved in antagonistic attack on the regime and asking for help from the most corrupt elements in the world to isolate, sanction, and even attack Iran, and they justify this as "necessary evil."

What I see here is that Iran, even the regime, does not need "punishment." You see people, even the more educated and well-off Tehranis, are quite unable to define what freedom is or what they want. These people are behind the rest of the world in terms of education and understanding. That is what they need - exposure to the experiences of other worlds. Isolating, sanctioning and attacking Iran, only serves to make things worse. It only pushes the society into more backwardness.

We need more Iranians outside of Iran, to starts groups and activities that provides our youth with information - accurate information, not hype or propaganda. God knows the west is not as glorious as these people think it is. They need to get caught up on the latest.

Of course the establishment will resist any change. Change is always feared by the well-established (rich and irresponsible). But it can be done. And conversations, dialogue and talks can make the change smooth, not threats of isolation, sanctions and war.

That's why I am against almost any antagonistic approach towards the regime. There is more than enough room to start productive education if one is sincere and his true goal is not to start a revolution and violence. For example, it is possible to set up Web sites filled with valuable information but nothing anti-regime. That way the regime will not feel necessary to block it. And yet one could do a world of good by educating Iranian youth and putting them in touch with other worlds.Something like PBS programming or Discover channel, or History channel, etc.Such information can be very useful to the youth and guide them in the right direction.

Why not do some positive work instead of all the negativity? Most of these people are telling us that they don't want a violent change which involves great risks - it is not necessary at this point, if it ever was before. 

this is what u get when u....

takes things for granted....
shah had his issues, of course, but compare that era with now.
this is what u get when akhoonds impose their twisted philosphy on the people of iran.
My great grandfather was a grand-ayatollah, and I have the deepest respect for a true rohani, but the majority of these individuals, such as khamenei and rafsanjani are very corrupt and vile- with no respect or dignity except for their own pockets.
it's a shame to see how such a bright group of young individuals are being held back by a small group of mullahs- think of what we would have been if they had let iran decide her own destiny!!
but as long as the british think of irans oil as their own this is what u will have to live with.
despite this, the akhoonds can be brought to their knees with a simple act- have all oil workers go on strike- within a week, they will crumble(of course, the chinese and russian goons will probably intervene)
either way, the mullahs cannot have free reign on iran for much longer, their time is coming fast!

pls remember this

is a view of tiny northern tehran. The bigger picture of Iran as whole is much worst than northern Tehran. The Iranian youth faces much more harassments, unemployment, addiction in other regions. Reform doesn't within this constitution doesn't exist in their minds..

Such a vibrant peope and

Such a vibrant peope and mostly well thought out views expressed in a simple yet elegant manner. I am so proud of the youths of today in Iran who do not give up hope. They are the hope of the country.

Old viewer thanks for some

Old viewer thanks for some much needed common sense...something severely lacking here...

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

To Mr Amir Nasiri

Not IRI agents, it must be the British!

Please watch the film, it is by no means an advert for the Iranian government. Do you see how the youth bemoans their lack of freedom?!

If you've been to Iran recently you'll see that the kids make the best of what is allowed and try and push the boundaries. For me they are the ones that will make the new Iran not a bunch pseudo intellectual conspiracy theorist sitting in la la land hoping for the second coming!!

Enough mud slinging

I am an old Iranian.com viewer and I am getting really sick and tired of the personal attacks and insults that people indulge in here. OK, so the site mediators filter out the worst insults but this continuing personal venom that is unleashed here is a real turn off for many of us.

It is so easy to assume an anonymous identity and trash someone's contribution. Here we are, having watched a very nice film (thank you the makers and thank you Maziar) and here is a guy, Sadegh, who offers some thoughts on it, and then somebody has to barge in and ridicule and trash him. What the heck is the point of this practice? If you've got something to say, well, put in the time and effort that is required and come up with some formulation of it. For God's sake we just watched a film on freedom. Doesn't that make you at least give some thought to the subtleties in the practice of freedom -- as opposed to some elementary and sloppy notion of it as "anything goes"?

Freedom of thought

All power to young Iranian people who make a distinction between freedom of thought and freedom of action. They are so right that Iranians are free thinkers. As we all know freedom of action is virtually non-existent in Iran but that has never stopped Iranians of any generation to imagine and think freely. And that is what cannot be said of people in the U.S., for instance. Americans have become increasingly conformist and restricted in their mental and creative abilities. What good is freedom of action if you are not free in your own mind?

Look Dearie (i.e. Sadegh)

If you hav something outside your lecture notes to say, say it on the thread below:

//iranian.com/main/2008-342

Don't waste your "talent" on this thread :))

AP

Anonymous Philosopher save

Anonymous Philosopher please save us your embittered hostility...this is a forum for discussing issues relevant to the video, and that is what I'm doing...I know you probably prefer the usual moronic atmosphere here  of "you're an IRI agent", "you're a Zionist" but I don't...this is a forum in which all can express their views and you have absolutely right no to tell anyone what they can and what they can't express my dear boy...also no lecture notes here, as I said they were informal and quite arbitrary observations... 

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh

Please will you spare us your lecture notes!

Sadegh

You may have a repressed desire to express that which you cannot say in the class rooms but this is neither the place nor the time. Flout the lecture notes in the right place dear boy.

AP

Iran is not only northern Tehran

I have a suspicion that this video was made by IRI agents.

It was interesting that no ne from other Iranian provinces who are suffering the most as well as south of Tehran.

It was funny when in of the gatherings that one girl was using the metaphor of 5 rooms filled with toys. She was saying that in west kids might have 5 rooms filled with toys and in Iran we have 1 room filled with toys.

I would like to add to the latter that 90% of Iranian don't even have that 1 room with the toys.

Most of these young men and women are going to be unemployed and have no hopes unless they travel to India or Pakistan work in call centers or if they are very lucky travel to Europe or North America.

This clip was a propaganda. Most young people can't even go to universities.

Inflation and unemployment is so high that living in Iran is impossible.

A few informal and

A few informal and arbitrary observations on the documentary...

Though I have a quite strong dislike for the rampant and vulgar desire for Western-style consumerism so prevalent amongst northern Tehranis, the documentary does convey well the desire for a form of "negative freedom" amongst young Iranians' whereby the personal sphere is sanctified and protected from state interference and meddling. This sentiment is more than understandable given that since the revolution not only the public, but the private realm has been politicized virtually in its entirety. 
In a sense young Iranians' desire a respite from being interpreted politically in spite of themselves. They want to shield themselves from a distinctly Iranian variation on the Sartrean "gaze" that reifies and fixes them in their designated social roles (as kinds of "ideal" and "revolutionary" archetypes) along with the concomitant expectations appropriate to such a role (compounded by a religious authoritarianism advocated by the present regime). I thus greatly empathize and agree with the form of such freedom just not its content, which is inane, banal and helpless to dissolve the contradictions and nihilism which so often afflict modern life and the human condition as we have come to know it. 

There is a kind of delusion which holds to the naive belief that such problems will miraculously disappear once certain cultural commodities are imbibed and uncritically taken up by Iranian society. In a sense much of Iran's pre- and post-revolutionary intellectual production, from Ahmad Fardid, to Al-Ahmad, Shariati to Soroushand Shayegan has been a skewed and contorted effort to understand the hollow decrepitude of the past in light of the present and the equally painful false promise of utopia on the cusp of tomorrow. But as Voltaire said (or at least supposedly said) "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." At least for the present many urge that no group, religious or otherwise has the prerogative to dictate how others ought to live. The sentiment amongst young Iranians generally seems to be one of reform in terms of respect for "negative liberty", but also a deep longing for economic opportunity, palpably absent from the stagnate, corrupt and increasingly militarized economy. 

Ba Arezu-ye Movafaghiat, Sadegh