When I first began "blogging" here (or more accurately, "threading") about two months ago, I had to defend my right to speak, because I was not an Iranian. It was hard, and sometimes painful, to hold my ground. But I knew I had finally arrived when I began to be accused of being a secret agent of various governments and organizations. I was “in”, I was accepted, I was one of the family. I met this victory with an odd mixture of satisfaction, frustration, and occasional despair.
Recently these accusations have been popping up left and right, and I mean literally left and right, because I am now apparently both a Hezbolaahi and a Zionist agent. I reply to these claims patiently, but still they multiply like mushrooms after a rainstorm. So today I posted a lengthy reply to one of these posts—lengthy even by my standards--intending to convert it into a blog. And thinking, well, from now on I’ll just refer my accusers to that blog. But then I thought, why bother? After all, the reply I wrote today to accusations leveled at me under the December 20 Iranian of the Day entry entitled “Brilliant Physicist.,” is really good enough. I can just refer them to that. And anyway anyone can track all my posts on my blogspace. So I decided to translate a poem instead.
It is a Chilean poem I've long known as a song, and heard again yesterday in a cafe near my home in the East Village. It was written by progressive activist Violeta Parra in 1965. It is called “Gracias a la vida.” It is very well-known.
The nation of Chile has known major CIA interventions, dictatorships, tortures, gross exploitation of its natural resources, economic disaster, and depredations upon its indigenous peoples. But it has also known great strides in democracy and autonomy, and it has given us this song.
I confess. I am a secret agent. There are two secrets whose sanctity I always honor: the mystery of the unfolding of the human heart and that of the ultimate fate of the soul. And I divulge the name of my agency: My agency is myself, my autonomy, and truth as best I can understand it.
And I understand the sovereign agency of nations to be based on this same individual agency. An agency whose coming has long been announced in the timeless works of the two great Eniightenments, the secular and the spiritual ones. And yet whose fruition remains a dream, as long as these Enlightenments remain severed from each other.
But their union is whispered in every human breath, and also by the wind.
Forthwith, Violeta Parra.
Gracias a la vida
(Thank You, Life)
Thank you life for giving me so much.
It has given me two stars which, whenever I open them,
distinguish perfectly between black and white,
and in the high sky its starry depths
and among the crowds the man I love.
Thank you life for giving me so much.
It has given me my hearing, which, in all its breadth,
records day and night crickets and canaries;
hammers, turbines, dogs' barks, rainstorms,
and the gentle voice of my beloved.
Thank you life for giving me so much
It has given me sound and taught me my "abc's",
along with it the words which t I think and proclaim:
mother, friend, brother and light illuminating
the route of the soul of the one I now love.
Thank you life for giving me so much,
it has given me the progress of my tired feet;
with them I walked through cities and puddles,
beaches and deserts, mountains and plains,
and your house, your street and your patio too.
Thank you life for giving me so much.
It has given me my heart which shakes its very frame
when I look at the fruit of the human mind;
when I look at good so far removed from evil,
when I look into the depths of your clear eyes.
Thank you life for giving me so much,
It has given me laughter and it has given me weeping.
Thus I distinguish joy from affliction,
the two materials which shape my song,
and the song of all of you which is the same song,
and the song of everyone, which is my very own song.
Thank you life for giving me so much.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyOJ-A5iv5I
****
Happy Holidays.
Salaam, Iraanrikaa
And don’t forget, paranoia will destroy ya! :D
Robin Jayne Goldsmith
New York City, December 20, 2007
Recently by Rosie T. | Comments | Date |
---|---|---|
guess who | 8 | Aug 19, 2008 |
what is the color of love | 10 | Aug 17, 2008 |
Our Generation (for nazy kaviani) | 3 | Aug 15, 2008 |
Person | About | Day |
---|---|---|
نسرین ستوده: زندانی روز | Dec 04 | |
Saeed Malekpour: Prisoner of the day | Lawyer says death sentence suspended | Dec 03 |
Majid Tavakoli: Prisoner of the day | Iterview with mother | Dec 02 |
احسان نراقی: جامعه شناس و نویسنده ۱۳۰۵-۱۳۹۱ | Dec 02 | |
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Prisoner of the day | 46 days on hunger strike | Dec 01 |
Nasrin Sotoudeh: Graffiti | In Barcelona | Nov 30 |
گوهر عشقی: مادر ستار بهشتی | Nov 30 | |
Abdollah Momeni: Prisoner of the day | Activist denied leave and family visits for 1.5 years | Nov 30 |
محمد کلالی: یکی از حمله کنندگان به سفارت ایران در برلین | Nov 29 | |
Habibollah Golparipour: Prisoner of the day | Kurdish Activist on Death Row | Nov 28 |
To 2+2+3: Big, moi?
by Rosie T. on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:45 AM PSTWell depends on how you do the math. I am both quite tall and quite thin.
I keep telling people, learn to live with paradox and life will be much simpler.
To us, you will always be Fatmeh Rosie Hezbollahi...
by 2+2 = 3 (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:30 AM PSTgetting a kickback from JJ to attract more visitors to the site. I can tell from your incomplete photo, you are big!?
Happy New Year
Mard va zan
by Rosie T. on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:25 AM PSTWhen I first started studying Persian, I'd studied several European languages and I really wanted to know a language of the Indoeuropean family from the further reaches of the Steppe, tireless mother of Eurasia, birthing the Patriarchy that swept through Europe, Iran and India five thousand years ago, bringing its technologies and empires but supplanting the worship of the fertility Goddess.. And so I studied Persian and eventually I noticed the connection of mard and zan to the European languages. And I realized that even if those had been the only words I'd learned, they would have been more than enough.
Mard/marg/mortal/morgue/mort, muerte--death, French, Spanish. (smrt....death-Czech).
Zan--Russian zhena (woman); Greek "gyn" as in gynecology, generation, genitalia, gene etc.
Man: one who dies, who is mortal.
Zan: one who generates, who gives birth.
Every moment is an interplay of light and dark, birth and death. Each human and all that is follows this natural course. It is inescapable.
We are all male and female in that we are all born and for a short time we create (generate) and then we die. How we define ourselves is our own choice, and the fullest lives seek balance of these opposites. So, as I've already said, I'm quite okay with what nature has endowed me with and that includes my age, my nose, and my genitalia. And no, I have no particular desire to be a man. What I can't do with my vulva I can still do with my mind and my hands. My species is still homo sapiens and homo faber--man of knowledge and Toolmaker.
Whether I'd been born a man or a woman, I am sure my search and the few basic truths I've gleaned would have been exactly the same: human ones. I'm a woMAN. I'm a huMAN. As are we all.
Fozooli
by Anonymous. (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:16 AM PSTRosie, would you mind telling us why and how you (as a non-Iranian) are so much interested in and knowledgeable about Iran and Iranian issues? I often find your writings very interesting. I'm just curious, and I don't care whether you're an agent of someone or not. There are so many agents around these days, even babies!
.
Happy Holidays!
Excuse Me Rosie
by Alen Delon (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 11:05 AM PSTYou face looks nice. Is the Rest of your figure (body) also Nice? .. Merci :)
Morad joon mokhlessetam
by Hassan Kacahal (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:54 AM PSTBezaar bebinim in baba marde ya zaneh? ageh mardeh khob taklifemoon bahaash roshaneh. amma ageh zaneh, khob berim khaastgaari :)
Hassan Kachal
by Morad Barghi (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:47 AM PSTToro hazrate Abbas Velemoon Kon. Akhe' Inam Shod Soal? :) !!!! - Khoda Pedareto Biamorze' !!
I knew it!
by Hassan Kachal (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:41 AM PSTYou see Rosie you are an enigma and I am sure you enjoy it too. Don't get me wrong, after all, you are such a grand Dame but, something tells me that there is an invisible manly spirit "inside" you who is crying to be heard. Your writings are, sometimes, not so feminine except for certain references to your assumed sexuality. Have you ever wished or needed to be a man?
48...and counting...
by Rosie T. on Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:27 AM PSTperimenopausal...and proud of it!
never felt more of a woman in my life....
waiting to see what insights the "hot flashes" will bring...
:D
Rosie, how old?
by Hassan Kachal (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 10:16 AM PSTRosie from the examples you cite for big-nose people, I gather you must be in your late forties (at least). Give us a clue :(
Rosie Joon (Again)
by Molla Omar (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 09:56 AM PSTNothing wrong with your nose. Pretty Sexy :)
To Molla Omar
by Rosie T. on Sat Dec 22, 2007 09:53 AM PSTYes it's me. I'm quite okay with what I've been endowed with. Please note the big nose. I LIKE it. And tell your female "hamvatans" to STOP MUTILATING THEIR FACES, from Tehran to Tehrangeles. I know, I know, big noses don't look too good with headscarves but the nose will stay long after the headscarf is gone... Callas had one, Sophia had one, Irene Pappas, Farah had one too...and Streisand was soooo sexy in "What's New Pussycat"...sexy/ugly, hey, ain't nothin' wrong with that!
:u) Shahbanou Masoud
Rosie Joon
by Molla Omar (not verified) on Sat Dec 22, 2007 09:33 AM PSTIs this your picture here? If that's you, hmmm - Not Bad :)