Date

IDEAS

We believe

Confederation of Iranian Students, Netherlands

by Farinaz Aryanfar
16-Oct-2008
We believe in the Universal Human Rights, we believe that every inhabitant of a state has to be equal before the law, in a society regardless of race, skin-color, beliefs etc. Because all the colors together establish the rainbow and if one is not participating, there would be no rainbow, it would be incomplete! And I know this sounds very simple, but that is what we miss in Iran: Simplicity. It would be fantastic if I, with my provocative ideas, could be treated the same as a man with his Islamic philosophy in Iran. Why won’t it be fantastic if EVERYONE gets equal treatment?>>>

IRAN-ISRAEL

Getting real

Dealing with an Iran that is unlikely to unlearn the technology of enriching uranium

by Trita Parsi
15-Oct-2008 (29 comments)
On the eve of his departure from political life, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Olmert delivered a stinging parting shot – putting under question not only the wisdom of holding on to Palestinian land, but also the feasibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities. “We have to make a decision, one that goes against all our instincts, against our collective memory,” he told the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth. Recognizing that no other Israeli leader ever had uttered these words publicly, Olmert went on to declare that “Israel must withdraw from almost all, if not all” of the West Bank to achieve peace. On Iran, Olmert argued that Israel had lost its “sense of proportion” when stating that it would deal with Iran militarily. “What we can do with the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese, we cannot do with the Iranians,” Olmert said >>>

IRANIANS

Agents of change

Excerpts from "Young and Defiant in Tehran"

by Shahram Khosravi
15-Oct-2008
In Tehran, the Iranian Artists’ Forum (Khaneye Honarmandan-e Iran) is the best location to observe the curiosity of the youth. Weekly courses or lectures are usually packed with young people who come to listen and discuss art and philosophy as well as other cultural and social issues. Moreover statistics show the considerable amount of translations of modern philosophy. For instance, all the books of Friedrich Nietzsche have been translated into Persian and have gone into multiple printings since the 1990s. The same holds true for many of the other philosophers of modernity. There have been more Persian translations of Kant in the past decade than in any other language. This is Sepehr’s and a part of his generation’s expectation of modernity. >>>

SEX

«هیچ‌ چیز خطرناک‌تر از زنی نیست که می‌‌نویسد»

مردم می‌گویند این‌که نوشتی کس، بی‌ادبی است. می‌گویم چرا بی‌ادبی است؟

by Leva Zand
15-Oct-2008 (17 comments)
اگر به زبان من دقت کرده باشی، می‌بینی چیزی که می‌نویسم، جنسی یا اروتیک نیست. کلمات جنسی که استفاده می‌کنم به‌هیچ‌وجه اروتیک نیست. قصد من از استفاده کس، کون، کیر، کونی، بارونی و کلمه‌هایی از این دست، واژگون کردن معنای منفی و کارکردهای تاریخی این واژه‌ها و آوردن آن‌ها در یک سطح متفاوت است. وقتی این‌ها را می‌نویسم یک اجراگری کلاسیک زنانه نیست. یعنی قصد نوشته‌ من تحریک امیال جنسی مرد دگرجنس‌گرا نیست. بنابراین خطرناک است. این در بالاترین می‌آید. مردم می‌گویند این‌که نوشتی کس، بی‌ادبی است. می‌گویم چرا بی‌ادبی است؟ دارم کلمه را در معنای کاملاً متفاوتی استفاده‌ می‌کنم. دیدن این تفاوت‌ها برای کسی که ذهنش به مردسالاری در زبان، عادت کرده، سخت است. >>>

LIFE

این قافله عمر عجب میگذرد!

سالها میآمد و میرفت،گردش ماه و خورشید

by Mohammad Hossainzadeh
15-Oct-2008 (9 comments)
نزدیکیهای صبح بود که رسیدیم شیراز، «ساک در دست و پتو زیر بغل». همگی رفتیم سراغ یکی از این هتلهای بی ستاره همان دور و بر دروازه اصفهان که لامپهای مهتابیش دم به دم باز و بسته میشد و اسفالت را رنگ میزد. هوا سوز داشت گرسنه هم بودیم و بیخوابی توی اتوبوس ایرانپیما هم رویش. دیروز عصر که از اهواز راه افتادیم تا خود بهبهان شرجی توی هوا موج میزد و حالا سرمای اول صبح شیراز ما را که پیراهن آستین کوتاه تنمان بود بد جوری غافلگیر کرده بود. من بودم، مهدی بود، عزیز، شهرام، منصور، پرویز و خیلی های دیگه که قیافه شان از یادم نرفته اما اسمشان چرا. همه بچه های خوزستان بودیم که حالا بعد از شیش ماه تعلیماتی توی پادگان زرهی اهواز، برای خدمت به شیراز آمده بودیم. با مهدی همان توی پادگان آشنا شدم. گاهی گپ و گفتی توی نهارخوری و بعضی وقتها هم سالن ورزش. اندامی ورزیده، صورتی آفتاب سوخته و نگاه گرمی داشت.>>>

LOVE

Mi vida es como un Tango

Where the fuck am I supposed to find the energy to go on for another half a century?

by Cameron A. Batmanghlich
15-Oct-2008 (3 comments)
I surrender to my destiny like the way I surrender to her, and let her decide the next move . Just as in life, when it only seems that we are in charge, in Tango it is the woman deciding the next step … not the man. The man is merely executing those moves … despite its reputation of being so macho - both the man and the dance itself. And so I let my destiny to carve out my path and if I encounter adversaries on that journey, I now know how to dance them away … instead of grabbing them by their hair flooring them, putting my foot on their throat as I used to do>>>

WHO'S WHO

Eminent Persians

Individuals who shaped Iran’s modern political history

by Abbas Milani
13-Oct-2008 (57 comments)
As the 25th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution approached, Abbas Milani realized that very little, if any, attention had been given to the entire prerevolutionary generation. Political upheavals and a tradition of neglecting the history of past regimes have resulted in a cultural memory loss, erasing the contributions of a generation of individuals. Eminent Persians seeks to rectify that loss. Consisting of 150 profiles of the most important innovators in Iran between World War II and the Islamic Revolution, the book includes politicians, entrepreneurs, poets, artists, and thinkers who brought Iran into the modern era with brilliant success and sometimes terrible consequences>>>

YOUTH

Transit Tehran

Viewing Iran from the ground up

by Maziar Bahari & Malu Halasa
13-Oct-2008 (one comment)
Things are never what they seem in the art of Sadegh Tirafkan, the new feminist journalism of Asieh Amini, and the romance Shi'a-style by new fiction talent Alireza Mahmoodi- Iranmehr. Other contributors include Newsha Tavakolian, named Best Young Photographer of 2006 by National Geographic, Abbas Kowsari, Javad Montazeri and Omid Salehi, who have continued to document the social transformation of their country in the face of mass closures of newspapers and magazines by the government. Above all, Transit Tehran celebrates the country's long tradition of artistic and cultural resistance that has influenced young Iranians, noticeably in the work of veteran editor and journalist Masoud Behnoud, photojournalist Kaveh Golestan, premier satirist and illustrator Ardeshir Mohassess, and photographer Mohsen Rastani.>>>

FICTION

The Newlyweds (5)

“So, Khanoom wants to get an education now? And for what? PhD-to begiri bad bezani dare koonam, vellam koni?"

by laleh haghighi
13-Oct-2008 (one comment)
Dear Khaleh Joon, I hope this letter finds you, Amir Khan and my dear cousins, all well. Forgive me if I always seem nervous and cut our telephone conversations short. I am so paranoid that Shahab is going to walk in on us or that he will somehow find out just by looking at me or by a slip of my tongue that I have been in contact with you. Also, when you pose me all your questions so fast, one after the other, I can’t gather my thoughts to answer them properly on the spot. It is as if Shahab is sitting in front of me, his eyes fixed on me, repeating the cardinal rule that he loves to repeat so much: >>>

HOLLYWOOD

راه گلشیفته را باز نگه داریم

راه برای آدم شجاع و با اعتماد به نفسی مثل گلشیفته‌ی فراهانی باز باز است

by hoder
13-Oct-2008 (18 comments)
من کی باشم که بخواهم برای یک دختر بالغ و عاقل و باهوش مثل گلشیفته‌ی فراهانی تکلیف تعیین کنم که چه کند یا نکند، چه بپوشد یا نپوشد، موهایش را چکار کند یا چکار نکند. ولی می‌خواهم به همه‌مان یادآوری کنم که ذوق‌زدگی‌مان از اینکه یک هنرپیشه‌ی جوان و با استعداد ایرانی در یک فیلم متوسط و در یک نقش درجه سه‌ی کلیشه‌ای اورینتالیستی (بقول گایاتری اسپیواک، زن سبزه و مومشکی‌ای که توسط یک مرد فداکار سفید چشم آبی از دست مردان مو‌مشکی وحشی نجات پیدا می‌کند، یا هر ورسیون دیگری از آن) کمی زیادی است. هالیوود مگر چه گهی است جز اینکه ۹۵ درصد محصولاتش مزخرفاتی است که برای سن عقلی ۱۲ تا ۱۶ سال ساخته می‌شود؟ یا دی کاپریو مگر کدام خری است که قرار است همبازی بودن با او به من یا شما یا گلشیفته افتخاری بدهد؟>>>

POETRY

خلاصی
by nilofar-shidmehr
13-Oct-2008 (6 comments)
امروز سرانجام کوچه و آفتاب
و کوههای نامحرم البرز
سلطنت خانم را می بینند
بهشت زهرایی ها آمده اند مادربزرگم را ببرند
 و او درختها را خواهد دید
مغازه ها را، خانه اش را از بیرون
و یگانه فرصتی را که دارد
تا محو شود بین در حیاط و آمبولانس >>>

HEROES

I Ran Into Myself in the Street and Asked

How many? 8,000? 10,000? Who were they really?

by Cklara Moradian
12-Oct-2008 (7 comments)
I performed a creative piece at the gathering of the Society for Human Rights in Iran, Southern California, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the 1988 Political Prisoner's Massacre in Iran. My piece was intended to promote the participation of Iranian youth, as well as give those unfamiliar with the atrocities in Iran an idea of what we are remembering. The event was held at UCLA and was not affiliated with any political organizations, and simply wished to remember the thousands of innocent people who were tortured and executed in the 1980s by the Islamic Republic of Iran's regime and promote the need for Human Rights organizations around the world to make sure that such travesty never occurs again. >>>

POETRY

Saturday Night Hooka

From, "Spying on the Persians: Collected Poetry of Iranian life in Los Angeles"

by razanbahrami
12-Oct-2008 (2 comments)
When you called you sounded tired
I was too from the night before
And although we both felt an obligation
To the twilight of our twenties to do something...
Something significant, on this Saturday night
We decided against it and instead to smoke a hooka
When we sat down at the cafe you complained of work
That the nurses had done this or that
Of a patient who had been especially sick >>>

LIFE

An American Friend

I wasn't asking for anything more than a fifty-fifty relationship with Americ

by siamak vossoughi
12-Oct-2008 (one comment)
I could have traveled all over, I could have read every book and heard every song, I could have made it my object of study, and none of it would have helped me love the America I wanted to love as much as one good American friend. I already wanted to know what everything was, so just to hear Jack say that he was hungry, I would think, 'There it is - America, contained in one American man's hunger.' All of a sudden, the America that was somebody's home came through to me through him. There was a love that an outsider had for America and there was a love that an insider had for it. I knew the first one through and through, because of watching and listening, and making the America that I wanted to love on my own.>>>

REMEMBERING

از یادشان نمی کاهیم

یادواره ی جانباختگان دهه ی 60 در فرانکفورت

by Shadi Amin
12-Oct-2008 (one comment)
در این مراسم که در سالن "اوکوهاوس" برگزار شد سخنرانانی از شهرهای مختلف آلمان و سوئد در آن به بازگویی تجربیات خویش پرداختند. در ساعت 6 عصرسالن مملو از جمعیتی بود که به دعوت "فعالین سیاسی چپ شهر فرانکفورت" پاسخ گفته و برای ابراز همبستگی با خانواده ی جانباختگان و اعلام ادعا نامه علیه رژیم جمهوری اسلامی در رابطه با این جنایات، در آنجا حضور به هم رسانده بودند. در محوطه ی ورودی سالن، نمایشگاه عکسی از جنایات رژیم جمهوری اسلامی توجه حاضرین را به ابعاد این فجایع جلب می کرد و در گوشه ای مقداری خاک که روی آن با گل و شمع تزئین شده بود و عکسهایی از خاوران در کنار آن به طور سمبلیک تصویر خاوران را در اذهان زنده می کرد و ستاره ی بزرگی از گل رزسرخ نشان از مقاومت و ادامه ی مبارزه داشت. در داخل سالن نیز توماری از اسامی جانباختگان که با گل و نور زیبایی تزئین شده بود ، حکایت از وسعت این کشتارها داشت. >>>
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